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ENJOYMENT  OF 
POETRY 


BY 

MAX  gASTMAN 

FOBUEBLT    ASSOCIATE    IN    PHILOSOPHY    AT    COLUMBIA    UNIVEB8ITT, 
OF  "COLOBS  OF  LIFE — POEMS  AND   SONGS  AND  SONMETS," 
"  ^OCBNALISM  VEBSUS  ABT,"   ETC. 


NEW  YORK 
CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 

MCMXXI 


OOPTBXQBT.  1913,  1921,  BT 

CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 
0<«)yright.  1918.  by  Alft-ed  A.  Knopf,  M.  C. 

PubUshed  April,  1913 

Reprinted  August,  October,  1913 

December,  1913;  December,  1914 

November,  1915;  June.  1916 

March,  1918 

Bevtoed  Edltton  PubUshed.  August,  I92i 


fW 


PREFACE  AND  SUMMARY 

The  purpose  of  this  book  is  to  increase  enjoy- 
ment. That  the  poetic  in  every-day  perception 
and  conversation  should  be  known  for  what  it  is, 
and  not  separated  from  the  poetic  in  literature, 
is  to  my  mind  essential  to  the  full  appreciation 
of  either.  And  that  poetry  in  general  should  be 
cut  off  from  those  unhealthy  associations  that  a 
leisure-class  decadence  has  given  to  the  word,  is 
of  value  to  the  enterprise  of  enjoying  life. 

I  have  drawn  the  distinction  between  the  poetic 
and  the  practical  as  it  appears  in  my  own  expe- 
rience, with  little  respect  for  academic  or  literary 
classifications.  In  this  way  I  believed  I  should 
stay  closer  to  my  chief  purpose;  I  should  also  be 
more  likely  to  contribute  to  scientific  truth. 

It  seems  to  me  that  a  study  of  books  must  be 
either  science — ^that  is,  the  chemistry  and  physics 
of  their  make-up,  and  the  psychology  of  their 
author  and  his  readers — or  else  history,  an  ac- 
count of  the  general  conditions  and  consequence 
of  their  production.  Otherwise  it  is  practically 
nothing  at  all.    And  most  of  what  we  call  "  lit- 


vi  PREFACE  AND  SUMMARY 

erary"  comment  and  criticism  is  indeed  neither 
science  nor  history.  I  hope  that  my  book  will 
promote  a  tendency  away  from  this  kind  of  ex- 
ercise. 

A  misfortune  incident  to  all  education  is  the  fact 
that  those  who  elect  to  be  teachers  are  scholars. 
They  esteem  knowledge  not  for  its  use  in  attaining 
other  values,  but  as  a  value  in  itself;  and  hence 
they  put  an  undue  emphasis  upon  what  is  formal 
and  nice  about  it,  leaving  out  what  is  less  pleasing 
to  the  instinct  for  classification  but  more  needful 
to  the  art  of  life.  This  misfortune  is  especially 
heavy  in  the  study  of  literature.  Indeed,  the 
very  separation  of  the  study  of  literature  from 
that  of  the  subjects  it  deals  with,  suggests  the 
barren  and  formal  character  of  it.  As  usually 
taught  for  three  years  to  postgraduates  in  our 
universities,  it  is  not  worth  spending  three  weeks 
upon.  The  best  lovers  of  literature  know  this, 
and  the  academic  world  will  some  day  know  it 
and  will  cast  about  for  a  real  science  which  they 
may  teach  to  those  who  are  going  to  read  litera- 
ture to  the  young.  That  science  will  be  psychol- 
ogy in  its  widest  sense.  For  psychology  is  a 
knowledge  that  is  general  without  being  merely 
formal.  It  will  reveal  and  explain,  not  the  scho- 
lastic conventions  about  literary  structure,  nor 
the  verbiage  of  commentators,  but  the  substantial 


PREFACE  AND  SUMMARY         vii 

values  that  are  common  to  the  material  of  all  lit- 
erature. I  hope  that  my  book  may  add  impetus 
to  this  change  in  education. 

Perhaps,  also,  by  emphasizing  the  fact  that 
things  are,  and  continue  to  be,  what  the  poet 
calls  them,  whatever  else  they  may  be  or  be 
named  by  the  scientist,  it  will  add  some  strength 
to  that  affirmatively  sceptical  philosophy  upon 
which  it  is  founded. 

But  these  aims  are  all  secondary.  The  chief 
purpose  is  to  extend  to  others  the  service  of  a 
distinction  which  has  made  the  world  more  enjoy- 
able to  me. 

In  chapter  one  I  have  shown  how  this  distinc- 
tion first  appears  in  the  attitudes  of  different  peo- 
ple, or  the  same  people  in  different  moods,  toward 
their  experience — toward  actions,  things,  emo- 
tions, images,  ideas.  I  have  shown  that  the 
poetic  attitude  prevails  in  childhood. 

In  chapter  two  I  have  shown  how  the  distinc- 
tion appears  wherever  names  are  newly  applied,  in 
the  origin  and  growth  of  language,  in  slang,  in 
expletives,  in  conversation,  in  books,  and  in  the 
disputes  of  metaphysics. 

In  chapter  three  I  have  pointed  out  the  two 
acts,  choice  and  comparison,  which  are  discover- 
able in  every  new  application  of  a  name,  and  dis- 


viii         PREFACE  AND  SUiMlVIARY 

tinguished  practical  choice  and  comparison  from 
poetic. 

In  chapter  four  I  have  explained  why  choice 
and  why  comparison  assist  the  poetic  impulse, 
the  impulse  to  realize. 

In  chapter  five  I  have  shown  that  realization  is 
often  more  poignant  in  the  absence  than  in  the 
presence  of  things. 

In  chapter  six  I  have  explained  how  choice  and 
comparison  appear  in  pure  poetry,  which  is  the 
verbal  realization  of  things  in  their  absence,  and 
in  poetic  discourse.  I  have  related  the  "figures 
of  speech,"  so  called,  to  the  common  poetic  use 
of  modifiers,  they  all  being  examples  either  of 
choice  or  comparison. 

In  chapter  seven  I  have  shown  what  I  beheve  to 
be  the  primitive  and  basic  relation  of  rhythm  to 
the  mood  of  realization. 

In  chapters  eight,  nine,  ten,  and  eleven  I  have 
explained  in  detail  how  the  technique  of  poetry 
applies  to  the  realization  of  distinguishable  ele- 
ments in  imagined  experience — actions,  things, 
emotions,  ideas.  I  have  introduced  examples  of 
poetry  that  has  given  me  the  greatest  enjoyment, 
and  I  have  illustrated  the  application  of  psycho- 
logical, instead  of  rhetorical,  concepts  to  its 
analysis. 

In  chapter  twelve  I  have  set  forth  values  which 


PREFACE  AND  SUMMARY  ix 

poetry  may  have,  not  as  a  realization  of  other 
things,  but  as  a  thing  to  be  reaHzed  for  itself. 
I  have  done  this  briefly,  because  it  contributes 
little  to  what  is  already  contained  in  other  books. 

In  chapter  thirteen  I  have  related  the  knowl- 
edge of  poetry  to  the  art  of  enjoying  it.  I  have 
dwelt  separately  upon  the  poetry  of  experience  and 
that  of  imagination  through  language,  and  I  have 
stated  that  the  best  path  to  the  enjoyment  of 
the  latter  lies  through  the  creation  of  it. 

In  chapter  fourteen  I  have  given  the  general 
principles  that  I  think  relate  to  the  creation  of 
rhythmical  English. 

In  chapter  fifteen  I  have  praised  poetry  for  its 
practical  value,  pointing  out  both  its  accidental 
value  as  an  enhancer  of  meanings,  and  the  value 
that  pertains  to  its  own  essence.  I  have  sug- 
gested that  the  latter  will  increase  in  proportion 
as  we  draw  more  perfectly  the  line  between 
knowledge  and  mythology,  and  compel  ourselves 
to  resort  for  exaltation  to  an  enthusiastic  welcome 
of  the  world  as  it  is  or  as  it  may  be,  and  for  relig- 
ion to  a  consciousness  of  the  final  mystery  of  its 
being. 


NOTE  TO  THE  NINTH  EDITION 

For  this  edition  of  "Enjoyment  of  Poetry"  I 
have  revised  the  text;  and  I  have  added  to  it  an 
essay  on  Ideals  of  Poetry,  which  formed  the 
preface  of  "Colors  of  Life,"  a  volume  of  my  own 
poems  published  by  Alfred  A.  Knopf. 

M.  E. 


CONTENTS 

I.    Poetic  People 3 

II.    Names  Practical  and  Poetic     ...  20 

III.  The  Technique  of  Names      ....  37 

IV.  The  Technique  or  Poetic  Names  .    .  47 
V.    Imaginative  Realization 59 

VI.    Choice  and  Comparison  in  Poetry  .    .  66 

VII.    Wine  and  Sleep  and  Poetry     ...  89 

VIII.    Realization  of  Action 98 

IX.    Realization  of  Things 113 

X.    Emotional  Realization 124 

XI.    Realization  of  Ideas 136 

XII.    Poetry  Itself 154 

XIII.    To  Enjoy  Poetry 168 

XIV.    To  Compose  Poetry 178 

XV.    The  Practical  Value  of  Poetry  .    .  189 

Ideals  of  Poetry 203 

Notes 231 

ziii 


ENJOYMENT  OF  POETRY 


CHAPTER  I 

POETIC  PEOPLE 

A  SIMPLE  experiment  will  distinguish  two  types 
of  human  nature.  Gather  a  throng  of  people  and 
pour  them  into  a  ferry-boat.  By  the  time  the 
boat  has  swung  into  the  river  you  will  find  that 
a  certain  proportion  have  taken  the  trouble  to 
climb  upstairs,  in  order  to  be  out  on  deck  and 
see  what  is  to  be  seen  as  they  cross  over.  The 
rest  have  settled  indoors,  to  think  what  they 
will  do  upon  reaching  the  other  side,  or  perhaps 
lose  themselves  in  apathy  or  tobacco  smoke. 
But  leaving  out  those  apathetic,  or  addicted  to 
a  single  enjoyment,  we  may  divide  all  the  alert 
passengers  on  the  boat  into  two  classes — those 
who  are  interested  in  crossing  the  river,  and  those 
who  are  merely  interested  in  getting  across.  And 
we  may  divide  all  the  people  on  the  earth,  or  all 
the  moods  of  people,  in  the  same  way.  Some  of 
them  are  chiefly  occupied  with  attaining  ends, 
and  some  with  receiving  experiences.  The  dis- 
tinction of  the  two  will  be  more  marked  when  we 
name  the  first  kind  practical,  and  the  second 
poetic,  for  common  knowledge  recognizes  that  a 
3 


4  ENJOYMENT  OF  POETRY 

person  poetic  or  in  a  poetic  mood  is  impractical, 
and  a  practical  person  is  intolerant  of  poetry. 

We  can  see  the  force  of  this  intolerance  too, 
and  how  deeply  it  is  justified,  if  we  make  clear 
to  our  minds  just  what  it  means  to  be  practical, 
and  what  a  great  thing  it  is.  It  means  to  be  con- 
trolled in  your  doings  by  the  consideration  of 
ends  yet  unattained.  The  practical  man  is  never 
distracted  by  things,  or  aspects  of  things,  which 
have  no  bearing  on  his  purpose,  but,  ever  seizing 
the  significant,  he  moves  with  a  single  mind  and 
a  single  emotion  toward  the  goal.  And  even  when 
the  goal  is  achieved  you  will  hardly  see  him  pause 
to  rejoice  in  it;  he  is  already  on  his  way  to  an- 
other achievement.  For  that  is  the  irony  of  his 
nature.  His  joy  is  not  in  any  conquest  or  destina- 
tion, but  his  joy  is  in  going  toward  it.  To  which 
joy  he  adds  the  pleasure  of  being  praised  as  a 
practical  man,  and  a  man  who  will  arrive. 

In  a  more  usual  sense,  perhaps,  a  practical  man 
is  a  man  occupied  with  attaining  certain  ends 
that  people  consider  important.  He  must  stick 
pretty  close  to  the  business  of  feeding  and  pre- 
serving life.  Nourishment  and  shelter,  money- 
making,  maintaining  respectability,  and  if  pos- 
sible a  family — ^these  are  the  things  that  give 
its  conmaon  meaning  to  the  word  "practical."  An 
acute  regard  for  such  features  of  the  scenery, 


POETIC  PEOPLE  5 

and  the  universe,  as  contribute  or  can  be  made 
to  contribute  to  these  ends,  and  a  systematic  neg- 
lect of  all  other  features,  are  the  traits  of  mind 
which  this  word  popularly  suggests.  And  it  is 
because  of  the  vital  importance  of  these  things  to 
almost  all  people  that  the  word  "practical"  is  a 
eulogy,  and  is  able  to  be  so  scornful  of  the  word 
"poetic." 

"  It  is  an  earnest  thing  to  be  alive  in  this  world. 
With  competition,  with  war,  with  disease  and 
poverty  and  oppression,  misfortune  and  death 
on-coming,  who  but  fools  will  give  serious  atten- 
tion to  what  is  not  significant  to  the  business?*' 

"Yes — but  what  is  the  use  of  being  alive  in 
the  world,  if  life  is  so  oppressive  in  its  moral 
character  that  we  must  always  be  busy  get- 
ting somewhere,  and  never  simply  realizing  where 
we  are?  What  were  the  value  of  your  eternal 
achieving,  if  we  were  not  here  on  our  holiday 
to  appreciate,  among  other  things,  some  of  the 
things  you  have  achieved?" 

Thus,  if  we  could  discover  a  purely  poetic 
and  a  purely  practical  person,  might  they  reason 
together.  But  we  can  discover  nothing  so  sat- 
isfactory to  our  definitions,  and  therefore  let  us 
conclude  the  discussion  of  the  difference  be- 
tween them.  It  has  led  us  to  our  own  end — a 
clearer  understanding  of  the  nature  of  poetic  peo- 


6  ENJOYMENT  OF  POETRY 

pie,  and  of  all  people  when  they  are  in  a  poetic 
mood.  They  are  lovers  of  the  qualities  of  things. 
They  are  not  engaged,  as  the  learned  say  that  all 
life  is,  in  becoming  adjusted  to  an  environment, 
but  they  are  engaged  in  becoming  acquainted 
with  it.  They  are  possessed  by  the  impulse  to 
realize,  an  impulse  as  deep,  and  arbitrary,  and  un- 
explained as  that  "will  to  live"  which  lies  at  the 
bottom  of  all  the  explanations.  It  seems  but 
the  manifestation,  indeed,  of  that  will  itself  in 
a  concrete  and  positive  form.  It  is  a  wish  to 
experience  life  and  the  world.  That  is  the  es- 
sence of  the  poetic  temper.^ 

Children  are  poetic.  They  love  to  feel  of 
things.  I  suppose  it  is  necessary  to  their  preser- 
vation that  they  should  be,  for  by  random  exer- 
cise of  their  organs  of  feeling  they  develop  them 

*  There  is  a  poetic  attitude  to  the  practical  life,  and  no 
poet  is  complete  without  it.  It  is  expressed  in  these  words 
of  Peter  Kropotkin: 

"Struggle!  To  struggle  is  to  Uve,  and  the  fiercer  the 
struggle  the  intenser  the  life." 

But  it  is  not  that  attitude  which  keeps  the  majority 
struggling,  or  keeps  any  man  incessantly  struggling.  They 
are  not  concerned  to  receive  the  experience  of  struggle, 
but  they  are  concerned  to  achieve  their  ends.  This  gen- 
eral tendency  to  achieve,  to  adjust — a  primary  impulse  of 
life — is  set  off  against  the  tendency  to  receive,  to  realize — a 
different  and  also,  I  believe,  a  primary  impulse  of  Hfe. 
Like  all  things  in  the  world  these  impulses  are  rarely 
found  pure,  but  they  can  be  analyzed  out  and  isolated  for 
purposes  of  understanding. 


POETIC  PEOPLE  7 

and  make  them  fit  for  their  practical  function. 
But  that  is  not  the  chief  reason  why  they  are 
poetic;  the  chief  reason  is  that  they  are  not  prac- 
tical. They  have  not  yet  felt  the  necessity,  or 
got  addicted  to  the  trick,  of  formulating  a  pur- 
pose and  then  achieving  it.  Therefore  this  naive 
impulse  of  nature,  the  impulse  toward  realization, 
is  free  in  them.  Moreover,  it  is  easy  of  satisfac- 
tion. It  is  easy  for  children  to  taste  the  qualities 
of  experience,  because  experience  is  new,  and  its 
quahties  are  but  loosely  bound  together  into  what 
we  call  "things."  Each  is  concrete,  particular, 
imique,  and  without  an  habitual  use. 

Babies  have  no  thought,  we  may  say,  but  to 
feel  after  and  find  the  world,  bringing  it  so  far  as 
possible  to  their  mouths  where  it  becomes  poig- 
nant. They  become  absorbed  in  friendship  with 
the  water  they  bathe  in.  The  crumple  noise  of 
paper  puts  them  in  ecstasy,  and  later  all  smells 
and  sounds,  brightness,  and  color,  and  form,  and 
motion,  delight  them.  We  can  see  them  discover 
light  by  putting  their  hands  before  their  eyes  and 
taking  them  away  quickly,  and  again,  at  a  later 
age,  discover  sound  by  stopping  their  ears  and 
opening  them  again. 

Who  does  not  remember  in  his  own  childhood 
testing  the  flavors  of  things — of  words,  perhaps, 
saying  them  over  and  over  until  he  had  defeated 


S  ENJOYMENT  OF  POETRY 

his  own  wish,  for  they  became  pulpy  and  ridicu- 
lous in  his  mouth?  Anything  which  invades  the 
sense  like  cinnamon,  or  sorrel,  or  neat  flowers,  or 
birds'  eggs,  or  a  nut,  or  a  hom,  is  an  object 
of  pecuUar  affection.  It  is  customary  in  books 
about  children  to  say  that  they  care  little  for  the 
actual  quahties  of  an  object,  and  are  able  to  deal 
with  it  as  though  it  were  anything  that  they 
choose  to  imagine.  But  I  think  only  the  positive 
part  of  this  statement  is  true.  Undoubtedly  their 
imaginations  are  active  in  more  various  direc- 
tions, and  they  draw  the  distinction  between  the 
real  and  the  ideal  in  perception  less  clearly  than 
grown-up  people  do.  But  the  most  pronounced 
characteristic  of  children  is  that  they  are  per- 
fectly free  to  feel  the  intrinsic  qualities  of  things 
as  they  merely  are.  What  we  call  objects  are 
for  the  most  part  practically  determined  co-ordi- 
nations of  qualities.  And  what  we  call  the  actual 
quality  of  an  object,  is  usually  the  quality  which 
indicates  its  vital  use.  When  we  say  actual, 
therefore,  we  really  mean  practical.  But  so  far 
as  actuality  from  the  stand-point  of  the  things  is 
concerned,  the  children  come  nearer  to  it,  and 
care  more  about  it,  than  we  do.  To  us  a  derby 
hat  is  for  covering  the  head,  and  that  is  about  all 
it  is;  but  to  them  it  is  hard,  smooth,  hollow,  deep, 
funny,  and  may  be  named  after  the  mixing-bowl 


POETIC  PEOPLE  9 

and  employed  accordingly.  And  so  it  is  with  all 
things.  The  child  loves  a  gem  with  its  pure  and 
serene  ray,  as  the  poet  loves  it,  for  its  own  sake. 

Nor  is  it  only  such  quahties  as  may  be  said  to 
give  pleasure  that  he  seeks,  unless  pleasiure  be 
defined  as  seeking,  for  he  wants  all  experience. 
He  wants  all  that  he  can  stand.  He  is  exploring 
the  whole  world  of  sense,  and  not  rarely  upsets 
his  stomach,  and  his  entire  system,  in  a  zest  for 
the  reception  of  sensations  that  are  instinctively 
abhorred.  Two  children  of  our  neighborhood  will 
wear  to  their  graves  the  brand  of  a  red-hot  scarf- 
pin  as  a  testimony  to  that  first  love  of  expe- 
rience. They  did  not  want  torture,  I  suppose, 
but  they  wanted  to  see  what  it  is  to  be  tortured. 
And  so  it  was  in  varying  degrees  with  us  all.  It 
seems  to  me,  when  I  look  back,  as  if  we  were 
forever  out  behind  the  barn  finding  out  what 
something  or  other  was  "like." 

It  has  been  a  vast  problem  for  those  concerned 
with  aesthetic  and  other  theories,  why  people  love 
tragedy  when  they  are  not  in  it.  But  if  their 
theories  would  only  allow  that  these  organisms 
of  ours,  which  have  been  gnashing  and  struggling 
together  God  knows  what  billions  of  years  for  a 
chance  to  live,  have  really  an  interest  in  living, 
there  could  be  no  problem.  The  problem  is,  see- 
ing this  wild  zest  for  life,  and  life  so  tragic — the 


10  ENJOYIVIENT  OF  POETRY 

problem  is,  why  people  do  not  love  tragedy  when 
they  are  in  it.  And  in  truth  they  do.  From  the 
pure  sweetness  of  early  romantic  sorrow  to  the 
last  bitter  comfort  of  an  old  man  bereft,  who 
mutters  to  his  soul,  "This  is  a  part  of  the  full 
experience  of  a  man!" — from  first  to  last,  up  to 
the  cannon's  mouth  and  down  to  the  midnight 
grave,  the  poetic  impulse  survives.  We  love  to 
taste  life  to  the  full. 

In  energetic  but  idle  hours  it  survives  joyfully. 
And  in  youth  these  were  the  predominant  hours. 
At  all  times  we  were  ready  for  exuberant  realiza- 
tion. We  were  not  indifferent  to  the  morning. 
We  did  not  wake  at  the  greeting  of  a  last  night's 
proposition  in  conmierce  or  knowledge,  but  at 
the  smile  of  the  sun.  The  stuff  of  our  thoughts 
was  not  sentences  and  numbers,  but  grass  and 
apples  and  brown  honey.  Such  excellent  ob- 
jects parading  before  our  minds  in  a  thousand 
combinations  and  colors  left  us  no  time  to  develop 
these  general  conclusions  with  which  we  are  now 
filled.  We  could  not  banish  our  prairie  thoughts 
from  the  school-room,  though  they  liked  it  as  lit- 
tle as  we,  and  the  hour  of  recess  was  the  horn*  of 
life.  And  in  the  hours  of  life  how  greedy  we  were  I 
Every  sense  was  open  with  indiscriminate  ma- 
terial flowing  in.  Our  eyes  trained  for  every 
seeing,  our  ears  catching  the  first  murmur  of  a 


POETIC  PEOPLE  11 

new  experience,  we  ran  after  the  world  in  our 
eagerness,  not  to  learn  about  it,  but  to  taste  the 
flavor  of  its  being. 

"Oh,  the  wild  joys  of  livingl  the  leaping  from  rock  up  to 

rock, 
The  strong  rending  of  boughs  from  the  fir-tree,  the  cool 

silver  shock 
Of  the  plunge  in  a  pool's  living  water,  the  hunt  of  the  bear. 
And  the  sultriness  showing  the  lion  is  couched  in  his  lair. 
And  the  meal,  the  rich  dates  yellowed  over  with  gold  dust 

divine, 
And  the   locust-flesh   steeped   in   the  pitcher,  the  full 

draught  of  wine. 
And  the  sleep  in  the  dried  river-channel  where  bulrushes 

teU 
That  the  water  was  wont  to  go  warbling  so  softly  and 

well. 
How  good  is  man's  life,  the  mere  livingl  how  fit  to  employ 
All  the  heart  and  the  soul  and  the  senses  for  ever  in  joyl" 

This  agility  and  fervor  of  realization  extends 
early  to  the  exercise  of  all  the  senses.  And  then 
as  we  grow  a  little  older  it  comes  inward,  and  we 
tremble  to  catch  our  own  emotions  on  the  wing. 
Fear,  for  instance,  is  a  being  of  intense  fascina- 
tion, and  even  so  impelling  a  power  as  the  in- 
stinct of  self-preservation  is  suspended  by  the 
poetic  impulse — suspended  in  order  that  its  own 
very  nature  may  be  experienced  in  feeling.  Can 
you  not  remember  the  keen  edge  of  a  venture  into 
the  barn-yard,  a  tumultuous  dash  across  to  the 


12  ENJOYMENT  OF  POETRY 

com-crib  which  offered  a  refuge  impregnable  to 
those  mild-mannered  cows?  Anger  is  a  mod- 
erate pleasure  to  most  healthy  persons,  but  in 
youth  it  is  a  thing  to  thirst  after  and  brag  of. 
It  is  life  itself.  Mulishness  is  an  engaging  state 
of  being.  Cruelty  and  mercy  have  often  the 
same  original  charm. 

I  remember  discovering  insolence  with  exactly 
the  same  happy  spirit  of  gratification  with  which 
I  see  babies  discover  fight.  I  was  profoundly  in- 
terested in  Nancy  Hanks,  who  had  broken  the 
world's  record  by  trotting  a  mile  in  2.04.  I  be- 
lieve that  I  was  Nancy  Hanks  most  of  the  time, 
and  anybody  who  wanted  to  converse  with  me  or 
put  me  in  a  good-humor  would  begin  upon  that 
topic.  But  at  last  I  became  aware  that  I  could 
do  something  quite  different  from  being  gratified 
by  all  their  talk,  and  I  was  carried  away  by  the 
discovery.  My  opportunity  came  during  supper, 
at  the  gracious  hands  of  a  maiden  aunt: 

"Do  you  know  who  Nancy  Hanks  was  named 
after?" 

"No,"  I  shouted,  "I  don't  know  and  I  don't 
care  a  dam — see?  " 

My  memory  of  the  punishment  which  followed, 
and  how  I  became  aware  that  there  are  limits  to 
profitable  exploration  in  such  fields,  is  dim,  but 
of  the  excited  pleasure  of  the  adventure,  and 


POETIC  PEOPLE  13 

my  underlying  friendliness  toward  the  old  lady 
throughout,  I  am  quite  certain. 

They  are  great  days  when  we  first  discern  these 
powerful  creatures  in  us,  unnamed  and  meaning- 
less monsters  to  challenge  forth.  Ghost-terror, 
and  dizziness  and  sickness  at  the  sight  of  blood, 
are  among  them.  Imagine  the  mind  of  a  young 
man  who  knows  that  there  lies  a  pile  of  corpses 
the  other  side  of  a  smouldering  factory  wall,  and 
he  both  hastens  to  them  and  flees  away  from  them, 
until  finally  this  lust  after  the  intense  conquers, 
and  he  goes  and  gazes  his  fill.  Do  not  call  that 
morbid,  but  an  act  of  exuberant  vitality.  For 
there  is  high-spiritedness  in  those  that  are  young, 
not  for  sensation  only,  but  for  emotion.  And 
this  too  they  carry  with  them,  some  more  and 
some  less,  throughout  life.  Rancor  and  magna- 
nimity, lust  and  romance,  rapture  and  even 
melancholy — drink  them  to  the  dregs,  for  they 
are  what  it  is  to  be. 

"No,  nol  go  not  to  Lethe " 


It  is  not  only  things  of  the  sense  and  body  that 
a  child  loves  for  their  own  sake,  but  at  a  certain 
age  he  learns  to  watch  with  wonder  the  paintings 
of  his  mind.  When  he  is  condemned  into  his 
crib,  and  has  to  face  the  loss  of  the  whole  lovely 
world  in  sleep,  then  this  is  the  last  resource.    As 


14  ENJOYIMENT  OF  POETRY 

long  as  God  lets  him  he  will  devote  his  somnoles- 
cent  power  to  sensuous  memory  or  anticipation, 
or  just  the  circus-antics  of  grotesque  and  vivid- 
colored  creatures  that  dance  in  before  him  un- 
bidden, uncreated,  unexplained.  Even  if  some- 
times he  does  honestly  try  to  think,  he  finds  that 
he  cannot  very  long  cling  to  the  meaning  of  his 
thought,  because  he  is  all  curious  to  examine  those 
garments  of  imagery  that  it  wears. 

To  most  adults,  I  suppose,  it  is  a  bare  mechan- 
ical or  rational  process  to  count  from  one  to  a 
himdred;  but  to  an  alert  child  it  hardly  ever  is. 
It  is  a  winding  and  bending  over  a  plain,  over  a 
prairie,  a  slow  climb,  a  drip-drip,  or  an  odd  march 
of  marionettes,  or  perhaps  it  is  just  the  queer 
sound  of  the  words  at  his  ear.  At  any  rate,  the 
engrossing  thing  is  to  estimate  the  unique  char- 
acter of  the  process  and  of  each  member  in  it. 
Eight  is  a  jolly  fat  man.  Six  is  sitting  down. 
Some  people  say  that  they  never  had  any  of  these 
pleasures,  that  they  have  no  mind's  eye  at  all. 
They  cannot  see  six  sit  down.  Let  them  try  to 
comfort  themselves  with  the  idea  that  they  are 
more  scientific  than  the  rest,  not  having  vivid 
images  to  confuse  their  meanings  in  the  serious 
business  of  reaching  a  conclusion.  They  are  like 
the  people  on  the  ferry-boat  who  stay  downstairs 
where  there  are  few  distractions  and  they  can  be 


POETIC  PEOPLE  15 

perfectly  sure  to  get  across.  Luckier  than  they 
are  the  people  who  can  enjoy  the  scenery  of  spec- 
ulation, who  bring  with  them  out  of  childhood 
a  clear  and  spirited  fancy. 

"—Great  Godl    I'd  rather  be 
A  Pagan  suckled  in  a  creed  outworn; 
So  might  I,  standing  on  this  pleasant  lea, 
Have  glimpses  that  would  make  me  less  forlorn; 
Have  sight  of  Proteus  rising  from  the  sea; 
Or  hear  old  Triton  blow  his  wreathed  horn." 

The  final  appearance  of  the  poetic  impulse,  its 
intellectual  appearance,  is  also  at  its  height  in 
youth.  It  is  well  known  that  at  a  certain  period, 
if  they  are  healthy  and  have  a  little  self-depend- 
ence, young  persons  fall  in  love  with  all  kinds 
of  unusual  ideas.  They  come  forward  with  an 
amazing  belief,  a  wise  or  foolish  theory,  which 
they  attach  to  for  its  own  sake,  and  not  out  of 
regard  for  its  practical  or  real  consequence.  They 
take  a  taste  of  Atheism,  Anarchism,  Asceticism, 
Hindoo  Philosophy,  Pessimism,  Christianity,  or 
anything  that  offers  a  good  flavor  of  radical  faith. 
This  is  only  the  same  zest  for  experience.  And 
it  will  need  but  a  glance  at  life  and  literature  to 
prove  that  such  attachment  to  ideas,  with  small 
regard  for  their  meaning  in  conduct,  is  not  con- 
fined to  the  young.  It  is  a  poetic  pleasure  that 
people  bring  with  them  perhaps  farther  than  any 


16  ENJOYMENT  OF  POETRY 

of  the  others.  For  most  of  these  pleasures,  and 
especially  the  more  simple  and  innocent,  they 
soon  leave  behind,  as  though  it  were  somehow 
unworthy  to  be  childlike  and  love  things  for  their 
own  sake. 

We  have  a  superstition  prevaihng  in  our  homes 
that  the  first  thing  to  do  upon  the  appearance  of 
a  child,  is  to  bring  it  up.  And  we  see  children 
brought  up  in  the  utmost  haste  by  persons  who 
have  purchased  their  own  maturity  at  a  cost  of 
all  native  and  fresh  joy  in  anything  available. 
But  could  we  only  reaHze  how  far  the  youthful 
pleasure  in  every  poignant  reahzation  is  above  the 
accidents  of  fortune,  we  should  take  as  great 
pains  to  preserve  that,  as  to  erect  the  man  in  our 
offspring.  We  should  ourselves  long  to  be  born 
again,  and  maintain  for  the  future  a  more  equable 
union  of  the  practical  and  poetic  in  our  character. 

That  such  a  union  is  attainable,  the  lives  of 
the  greatest  show.  It  is  possible  to  keep  through- 
out a  life* not  wholly  disordered,  or  idle,  or  cast 
loose  from  the  general  drift  of  achievement,  a 
spirit  fresh  to  the  world.  The  thought  brings 
us  back  to  iEschylus,  a  man  of  heroic  proportions 
who  achieved,  in  an  age  of  turmoil  and  war,  a  life 
filled  wonderfully  with  realizations  that  were  final, 
the  fruit  of  evolution,  and  yet  not  wanting  the 
excellence  of  great  action  directed  toward  a  fur- 


POETIC  PEOPLE  17 

ther  end.  With  the  participation  of  that  poetic 
hero  in  the  campaign  of  defence  against  the  Per- 
sians, and  in  the  battles  of  Salamis  and  Marathon, 
it  seems  as  if  Nature  had  indeed  achieved  her  aim. 
There  experience  was  at  its  height,  but  purpose 
was  unshaken.  The  Httle  hbrary  and  piazza 
poets  and  esteemers  of  poetry  in  these  days  of 
art,  will  do  well  to  remember  the  great  Greek, 
who  died  the  most  renowned  literary  genius  of 
his  age  but  had  carved  upon  his  proud  tomb  only 
this  boast,  that  "The  grove  of  Marathon  could 
bear  witness  to  his  good  soldierhood,  and  the 
long-haired  Mede  who  felt  it." 

It  would  be  foolish  indeed  to  question  whether 
or  not  the  poetic  are  capable  of  purposeful  achieve- 
ment, and  the  practical  capable  of  intense  expe- 
rience, for  we  are  all,  except  those  lost  in  apathy, 
in  some  degree  both  poetic  and  practical.  But  the 
example  of  the  hero  proves  that  it  is  possible 
for  a  man,  who  can  think  clearly  and  command 
the  differences  that  lie  within  him,  to  be  both 
poetic  and  practical  in  a  high  degree. 

If  we  could  but  free  our  minds  from  a  con- 
tamination with  certain  modern  people  who  teach 
themselves  that  they  are  presided  over  by  a 
pretty  demon  called  an  Artistic  Temperament,  we 
should  not  only  cease  cherishing  by  suggestion 
the  tickle-brain  condition  into  which  they  decay. 


18  ENJOYIVIENT  OF  POETRY 

but  we  should  have  for  ourselves  a  sounder  esti- 
mate of  the  place  and  dignity  of  the  poetic.  It 
is  not  an  attribute  of  special,  exotic,  or  disordered 
types,  but  a  universal  quality  of  our  nature.  No 
live  man  is  without  an  arbitrary  passion  for  some 
experience.  Indeed,  the  defect  of  many  of  those 
most  scornful  of  poetry  is  not  that  they  are 
strong  in  the  practical  life,  but  that  the  attach- 
ment to  some  single  state  of  being  has  got  the 
better  of  them.  There  are  fifty  thousand  mor- 
phine-takers in  Paris,  and  all  over  the  face  of  the 
earth  how  many  million  chewers,  and  breathers, 
and  swallowers  of  what,  far  from  being  of  prac- 
tical value,  is  both  costly  and  deleterious,  bear- 
ing unconscious  witness  to  the  poetry  of  human 
nature. 

The  greatly  poetic  differ  from  them  only  in  the 
healthy  variety  of  their  loves,  prevailing  every- 
where and  always.  They  are  those  who  live 
variously  as  well  as  vividly  in  the  present.  This 
alone  distinguishes  them  from  the  millions.  This 
alone  distinguishes  them  from  all  those  excluded 
by  our  experiment  at  the  beginning,  who  confine 
their  enjoyment  to  smoke  while  they  are  cross- 
ing the  river.  They  are  not  without  realization. 
But  it  is  only  the  childlike  and  the  poetic  who 
make  the  innumerable  intimate  acquaintances 
that  are  to  be  made,  who  welcome  all  living 


POETIC  PEOPLE  19 

qualities  and  perfect  them,  and  finally,  perhaps, 
in  a  supreme  moment  of  morning  sunshine  and 
mist  over  the  city,  realize  what  we  may  call  the 
essence  of  crossing  a  ferry.  Their  breast  thrills, 
and  their  eyes  drink  with  rapture  the  million 
moving  and  dancing  details  of  that  pageant  of 
life 

" — the  white  sails  of  schooners  and  sloops, — ^the  ships 

at  anchor, 
The  sailors  at  work  in  the  rigging,  or  out  astride  the  spars. 
The  round  masts,  the  swinging  motion  of  the  hulls,  the 

slender  seq^entine  pennants. 
The  large  and  small  steamers  in  motion,  the  pilots  in  their 

pilot-houses, 
The  white  wake  left  by  the  passage,  the  quick  tremulous 

whirl  of  the  wheels. 
The  flags  of  all  nations,  the  falling  of  them  at  sunset. 
The  scallop-edged  waves  in  the  twilight,  the  ladled  cups, 

the  frolicsome  crests  and  glistening. 
The  stretch  afar  growing  dimmer  and  dimmer,  the  gray 

walls  of  the  granite  storehouses  by  the  docks. 
On  the  river  the  shadowy  group,  the  big  steam-tug  closely 

flank'd  on  each  side  by  the  barges — ^the  hay-boat, 

the  belated  lighter, 
On  the  neighboring  shore,  the  fires  from  the  foundry  chim- 
neys burning  high  and  glaringly  into  the  night, 
Casting  their  flicker  of  black,  contrasted  with  wild  red  and 

yellow  light,  over  the  tops  of  houses,  and  down  into 

the  clefts  of  streets." 


CHAPTER  II 
NAIVIES  PRACTICAL  AND  POETIC 

It  is  not  in  words  that  the  distinction  of  the 
poetic  from  the  practical  begins.  It  Ues  not  in 
books  but  in  the  protoplasm.  And  no  doubt,  if 
we  knew  enough,  we  need  not  begin  even  with 
people,  but  we  could  trace  this  cleavage  of  two 
motives  back  into  the  very  birth  of  alertness  in 
matter,  and  there  see  the  one  current  scorning 
the  other  as  to-day.  For  poetry  is  an  attitude 
of  the  body.  Both  anteceding  and  transcending 
speech  or  idea,  it  is  a  way  of  experiencing  realities. 

And  yet  the  realities  that  men  experience,  are 
in  their  nature  very  much  determined  by  words; 
their  names  are  a  part  of  them.  And  this  it  is 
important  for  those  who  estimate  poetry  to  under- 
stand. It  is  important  for  them  to  understand 
the  nature  of  what  we  call  "things" — that  they 
are  all,  as  we  perceive  them,  unions  of  an  external 
impression  \\dth  something  that  memory  contrib- 
utes. A  mere  glimmer  of  flame  through  the  air, 
for  instance,  and  we  have  an  oriole  flying;  an  odd- 
shaped  parallelogram  with  a  white  blotch  upon 
it,  and  we  perceive  the  polished,  square  surface  of 
20 


NAMES  PRACTICAL  AND  POETIC    21 

a  table.  Stand  too  near  an  oil  painting  and  you 
can  see  how  few  daubs  are  required,  so  they  be 
the  right  ones,  to  present  to  us  an  entire  pano- 
rama of  external  reality.  Nature  herself  pre- 
sents, at  any  one  time,  little  more  than  those  same 
few  daubs,  and  her  whole  triumphal  evolution 
would  be  to  us  only  a  rank  flux  and  confusion  of 
fragmentary  qualities  if  we  did  not  perpetually 
amplify  her  intimations,  and  respond  to  them  as 
things.  Perhaps  no  one  ever  saw  a  farm,  or  a 
country,  but  a  farm  or  a  country  can  be  both 
perceived  and  dealt  with  if  the  mind  is  active. 

Yet  either  to  perceive  it  or  deal  with  it,  with- 
out a  name,  is  not  easy.  Names  are  a  vital  part 
of  the  contribution  that  memory  makes  to  things. 
They  determine  and  carry  with  them  all  the  rest 
— the  imagery,  the  mood,  the  attitude,  and  ac- 
tivity. The  right  word  is  magic;  it  evokes  for 
us  out  of  the  eternal  fog  whatever  object  is  poten- 
tial there,  and  puts  us  face  to  face  in  direct  cur- 
rent of  communication  with  it.  It  does  this  as 
no  other  power  under  the  sun  can  do  it.  Is  it 
not  a  question  whether  there  could  really  be  such 
a  thing  as  a  country  until  after  there  was  a  word 
for  it?  Take  off  the  name,  and  I  am  not  sure 
but  the  whole  British  Empire — that  vast  world- 
power — would  vanish  like  a  speculation,  and  you 
would  have  merely  a  number  of  people  living  some 


22  ENJOYMENT  OF  POETRY 

here  and  some  there.  Annihilate  the  word  "love," 
and  you  would  alter  for  many  the  quahty  of  the 
very  fabric  of  their  lives.  Such  is  the  importance 
of  names;  they  are  close  constituents  of  real 
things. 

And  every  real  thing  has,  or  may  have,  two 
different  kinds  of  names.  It  may  have  names 
which  indicate  a  suitable  adjustment  to  it,  and 
names  which  engender  a  strong  reaHzation  of  it. 
The  practical  are  always  seeking  the  former 
names,  and  the  poetic  are  always  seeking  the  lat- 
ter, and  the  distinction  between  them  is  eternal. 
It  is  rooted  in  the  origin  of  tongues,  and  it  branches 
in  the  highest  apprehensions  of  metaphysics. 
Wherever  a  name  is  newly  applied,  we  may  ask 
and  answer  the  question,  is  it  applied  with  a  pre- 
dominantly poetic  or  a  predominantly  practical 
intent?  ^ 

Doubtless  we  have  in  ourselves  experienced 
something  like  the  original  birth  of  a  poetic  word. 

*It  will  be  understood  that  by  names  I  do  not  mean 
single  terms  only,  much  less  nouns,  hut  any  word  or  group 
of  words  identified  with  an  experience.  Only  five  of  the 
nine  parts  of  speech — nouns,  pronouns,  verbs,  adjectives, 
adverbs — can  alone  be  called  names  of  things.  The  rest 
are  things  in  their  own  right,  mental  acts  which  serve  in 
the  creation  or  manipulation  of  names.  Horse  is  a  name; 
BO  also  is  trot;  so  also  is  this  horse  thai  trots  as  though  his 
fore  and  hind  quarters  were  operated  separately.  But  thai 
and  as  though  standing  alone  are  not  names. 


NAMES  PRACTICAL  AND  POETIC    23 

We  first  got  acquainted  with  cows  by  mooing, 
and  with  the  wind  by  howling  up  his  chimney, 
and  sometimes  still,  when  a  blue-bottle  circles 
round  us  on  a  summer  noon,  if  we  have  nothing 
else  to  do  we  say  "buzz,"  for  no  better  reason 
than  because  he  said  it.  And  in  some  such  way 
as  this,  thousands  of  years  ago,  upon  the  tongues 
of  idle  but  appreciative  savages,  many  little  words 
and  parts  of  words  must  have  been  born.  Other 
little  words  are  reported  to  have  jumped  right 
out  of  the  mouths  of  these  savages,  when  they 
were  surprised  or  shocked  by  anything.  And 
probably  many  of  these  too,  when  they  were  after- 
ward applied  to  the  object  that  produced  them, 
were  applied  with  a  poetic  intent,  an  intent  to 
renew  that  experience  for  its  own  sake.  But  of 
those  words  which  arose — as  it  has  been  held  that 
all  speech  arose — out  of  a  song  or  grunt  of  action 
in  unison,  a  kind  of  "yo-he-ho,"  naming  the 
action  first  and  then  extended  to  the  object  acted 
upon,  probably  the  majority  were  children  of  a 
practical  necessity. 

It  is  not  poetic  to  extend  the  name  that  is  part 
of  an  act  to  the  object  acted  upon,  because  the 
object  is  not  like  the  act.  I  believe  that  this  is 
why  the  Teutonic  languages  retain,  in  defiance 
of  the  dictates  of  utiHty,  a  certain  number  of 
"strong  verbs,"  or  verbs  which  change  their  char- 


24  ENJOYMENT  OF  POETRY 

acter  radically  by  the  time  they  reach  the  past 
participle,  where  they  become  names  of  an  object. 
To  kill  is  a  vivid  act,  but  to  die  is  quite  opposite, 
and  therefore  the  associative  flavor  of  the  word 
killed  is  wrong.  It  is  very  weak,  and  we  always 
want  to  help  it;  we  want  to  say  "killed  dead"  or 
something  like  that.  Shotj  on  the  contrary,  sounds 
different  from  shoots  and  is  fit  to  receive  the  im- 
pact of  it;  it  is  a  strong  participle.  The  word 
break  is  intact  and  active,  and  breaked  would  be 
very  much  the  same,  but  broken  is  in  the  con- 
dition it  describes. 

These  are  producings  and  modellings  of  the 
substance  of  words,  but  we  must  follow  our  dis- 
tinction forward  into  another  kind  of  creation — 
the  creation  of  names  by  the  new  application  or 
combination  of  old  words.  "Fire-water"  is  the 
name  that  the  American  Indians  invented  for 
whiskey.  And  it  is,  when  you  pause  to  receive 
it,  a  very  wonderful  and  quick  metaphor.  Yet 
we  can  hardly  say  whether  it  illustrates  better 
the  practical  or  poetic  motive  in  word-making, 
whether  it  was  given  in  prudence  or  delight.  In 
the  name  that  some  Polynesian  savages  gave  to 
an  explorer's  watch  which  curiously  pleased  them, 
we  have  surer  signs  of  a  poetic  perception. 
"Moon,"  they  called  it,  and  when  they  were 
questioned  why,  they  said  that  it  was  "round 


NAMES  PRACTICAL  AND  POETIC    25 

and  stayed  awake  all  night."  But  for  examples  of 
such  poetry  in  the  transfer  and  recombination 
of  words  we  need  not  go  beyond  what  is  obvious 
in  our  own  language  to-day,  for  within  its  recent 
history  many  names  have  been  born,  and  still 
older  ones  retain  the  quality  of  their  birth.  But- 
tercup is  a  word  of  this  kind.  Blue-eyed  grass, 
golden-rod,  fire-bird,  dovetail,  sky-scraper,  ocean 
greyhound,  pinchpenny,  rakehell,  swashbuckler,  spit- 
fire, kill-joy,  slipgibbet,  are  words  of  more  or  less 
rapt  appreciation;  while  on  the  other  hand  win- 
ter squash,  Canada  fox,  ball-and-socket,  office  build- 
ing, steamboat,  railroad,  money-sawr,  motor-cyclist, 
justify  themselves  only  by  their  utility. 

Even  the  plainest-looking  words  will  some- 
times reveal,  to  one  who  likes  them  well  enough 
to  look  for  it,  a  lucid  perception  out  of  which  they 
sprang.  Sarcasm  is  "a  tearing  of  the  flesh." 
And  we  may  contrast  it,  for  our  purpose,  with 
irony,  which  means  "saying  little — saying  less 
than  you  mean,"  one  conveying  an  acute  expe- 
rience, the  other  a  practical  analysis.  Gymnasium 
is  "the  place  of  nakedness."  Retort  is  "a  twist- 
ing back."  Enthusiast  is  "full  of  God."  Night  is 
"death."  And  nightingale  is  "singer-in-the-night." 

Such  is  the  poetry  which  you  find  in  the  dic- 
tionary, the  unpremeditated  art  of  men  for  ages 
dead,  whose  utterance  in  a  vivid  moment  rose  to 


26  ENJOYMENT  OF  POETRY 

the  heights  of  genius  and  could  not  be  forgotten. 
It  is  the  supreme  model  for  all  poetry,  vital,  demo- 
cratic, inevitable,  embodying  the  native  forms 
under  which  man  has  beheld  his  visible  world, 
and  the  subtle  work  of  analogy  by  which  he  has 
blended  that  "v^ith  the  widening  panorama  of  the 
spirit. 

The  same  process  will  go  on  forever.  In  our 
own  times  every  little  while,  out  of  a  body  of 
names  which  all  suffer  the  flavor  of  disreputa- 
bility  and  are  called  slang,  the  language  stoops 
and  picks  up  a  gem.  "You're  a  daisy,"  is  an 
expression  peculiarly  akin  to  much  of  the  poetry 
that  already  Hes  hidden  in  the  forms  of  words. 
We  can  look  forward  to  a  time  when  in  a  changed 
language  the  flower  may  have  another  name,  but 
still  a  man  of  that  character  will  be  a  daisy,  and 
no  one  will  know  why.  Squelch  and  groiLch  and 
butt  in  are  words  which  might,  either  for  practi- 
cal or  poetic  reasons,  be  lifted  into  good  repute. 
In  the  dialect  of  special  cliques  or  professions, 
thieving,  sailing,  baseball,  journaUsm,  as  well  as 
in  general  slang,  new  names  of  both  these  kinds 
are  continually  bom.  A  hit,  and  a  two-base  hit, 
and  a  home  run  are  simply  useful  terms;  but  to 
lean  against  the  leather,  to  rap  out  a  two-bagger,  to 
zip  it  to  the  fence,  are  superfluous  and  poetic  ex- 
pressions. 


NAMES  PRACTICAL  AND  POETIC    27 

It  is  said  that  only  those  slang  words  which 
fill  a  vacancy  are  taken  up  into  reputable  dis- 
course, but  in  reality  literature  is  ever  on  the 
watch  for  terms  which  are  peculiarly  poignant  or 
akin  to  their  objects,  and  ready  at  any  day  to  ex- 
change for  them  an  equivalent  synonym.  Lurid 
is  a  word  exactly  expressing  the  character  of  mod- 
ern cheap  newspapers,  but  it  is  not  altogether 
living,  and  so  in  the  first  flush  of  their  realization 
a  new  name  came  to  the  birth.  They  were  yel- 
low. And  yet  so  strange  is  time,  and  so  eternal 
is  the  perfection  of  a  metaphor  which  is  perfect, 
that  if  we  turn  back  to  the  days  when  the  word 
lurid  itself  was  born  and  when  it  too  joyfully 
lived,  we  find  in  it  exactly  the  same  poetry.  It 
is  luridusy  a  Latin  word  for  "ytVLow" 

The  enduring  character  of  the  poetic  instinct 
is  further  proven  by  the  luxuriance  and  similar- 
ity in  all  ages  of  the  language  of  vituperation. 
Poetry  is  the  art  of  calling  names,  and,  in  the  art 
of  calling  people  bad  names,  not  Homer,  nor 
Shakespeare,  who  is  the  master,  can  excel  the 
folk-lore  upon  which  he  builds.  For  acute  realiza- 
tion of  the  vile  qualities  of  men,  and  for  scenic 
effects  of  the  same  character,  we  need  not  turn 
to  our  Hbraries.  Though  the  scenic  oath  is  scant 
among  Anglo-Saxons,  the  scantness  is  more  than 
compensated  in  southern   Europe.    Imagine   a 


28  ENJOYiVIENT  OF  POETRY 

race  which  put  as  much  energy  of  genius  into  the 
verbal  reaUzation  of  the  tragic  or  subHme  as  the 
Spaniards  or  Neapolitans  do  into  the  nauseous 
and  irreverent — most  of  our  poetry  books  would 
have  to  hide  their  heads.  And  as  it  is,  I  believe 
that  their  authors  could  better  leam  their  art 
here — in  the  language  of  loose  wrath  among  the 
unlettered — than  an^nivhere  else,  unless  perhaps 
in  the  dictionary  of  etjTnology. 

Some  people  think  that  the  poetic  are  always 
talking  symbolism  and  endowing  the  sod  with 
spiritual  meaning.  They  do  that,  to  be  sure, 
because  that  is  a  great  way  to  realize  the  sod  and 
the  spirit,  but  they  also  do  the  opposite.  They 
daub  the  spirit.  The  most  baneful  degeneration 
to  which  names  lend  their  aid  is  a  poetic  one. 
It  is  an  excessive  love  of  the  imaginative  realiza- 
tion of  what  is  normally  repulsive.  Millions  of 
so-called  "stories"  are  current  among  men  and 
women  and  children  of  which  the  climax  is  not 
hmnor  but  poetry,  a  vivid  filth.  And  as  the  even- 
ing progresses  you  can  observe  this  corruption 
creep  into  a  group  of  story-tellers,  while  their 
humor  expires.    This  is  the  black  rot  of  poetry. 

Perhaps  the  reason  why  so  many  people  will 
resent  our  calHng  these  things,  and  others,  poetic, 
is  that  they  have  got  poetry  sentimentally  at- 
tached in  their  minds  to  a  mysterious  conception 


NAMES  PRACTICAL  AND  POETIC    29 

of  the  beautiful.  They  think  that  it  implies  a 
gush  of  harmonious  numbers  upon  appropriate 
occasions,  having  especial  regard  to  cliffs,  maid- 
ens, hair,  waves,  pine-trees,  the  sea,  the  moon, 
and  the  ethereal  significance  of  each.  And  the 
reason  for  this  is  that,  excepting  a  few,  the  most 
variously  poetic  people  do  not  write  poems.  It 
is  usually  only  those  of  a  certain  romantic  turn 
who  care  to  separate  names  from  their  objects, 
and  round  them  into  the  lyrical  shape,  and  make 
of  them  a  new  object.  But  these  objects  when 
they  are  made  are  called  poems,  and  thus  the 
whole  meaning  of  the  word  poetic  is  influenced 
by  the  preference  their  gentle  authors  have  for 
such  topics.  In  few  minds  to-day  does  the  word 
poetic  sit  clear  of  this  misfortune.  But  once 
leam  to  apprehend  as  such  the  poetic  in  every- 
day talk,  and  you  will  see  that  it  is  unlimited 
either  to  any  range  of  objects  or  to  any  sweet- 
ness in  handHng  them.  It  is  simply  the  giving 
to  any  object,  or  thought,  or  event,  or  feeling, 
the  name  that  makes  its  nature  shine  forth  to 
you. 

To  call  whiskey  "fire-water"  is  poetic,  but  it  is 
also  poetic,  although  with  an  admixture  of  humor, 
to  say  that  ApoUinaris  is  "the  water  that  tastes 
hke  your  foot's  asleep."  Both  are  true  namea 
And  in  such  lively  expressions,  words  which  per- 
haps never  permanently  unite  with  their  object. 


30  ENJOYMENT  OF  POETRY 

but  are  called  once  or  twice  and  then  forgotten 
forever — in  them,  poetry  is  living  continually  be- 
fore us. 

Imagine  that  there  are  two  people  walking 
along  the  beach  in  leisure  where  the  sea  resounds. 
"It  sounds  like  eternity,"  says  one.  "Well," 
says  the  other,  "it  sounds  to  me  more  like  shov- 
elling coal  down  a  chute."  The  contrast  is  per- 
haps sharp,  but  it  is  not  extreme,  for  each  has 
sensed  and  conveyed  to  the  other  in  language 
the  intrinsic  quality  of  his  experience.  The 
deeper  difference  Hes  between  them  both  and  the 
man  who,  walking  by  the  sea,  does  not  name  it 
for  its  sound  at  all,  does  not  pause  to  receive  the 
sound  into  his  mind,  but  names  it  brine — water 
with  a  three  and  one-half  per  cent  solution  of 
natural  salts  which  he  might  precipitate  with  a 
distillery  and  put  to  a  profitable  use.  He  is  the 
practical  man. 

The  conversation  of  the  poetic  is  acute  and 
exhilarating,  waking  you  to  the  life  and  eminence 
in  reality  of  all  things.  The  conversation  of  the 
practical  is  instructive,  interesting,  sometimes  full 
of  surprise  and  a  feeling  of  supreme  possibility. 
For  in  its  highest  reach  the  practical  application 
of  names  is  nothing  less  than  the  external  sub- 
stance of  scientific  knowledge. 

Those  who  are  engaged  in  the  quest  of  such 
knowledge,  and  who  call  it  Pure  Science,  and 


NAMES  PRACTICAL  AND  POETIC    31 

scom  the  application  of  its  results  to  those  pur- 
poses recognized  in  the  popular  use  of  the  word 
"practical/*  will  resist  the  appellation.  But, 
nevertheless,  their  activity  in  the  laboratory,  or  in 
their  own  minds,  comparing,  classifying,  naming, 
is  always  directed  toward  an  end,  however  arbi- 
trary, which  they  have  set  before  them,  and  is 
subject  to  the  test  of  their  achieving  or  failing 
to  achieve  that  end.  Wherever  it  is  not  mere 
mythology,  science  is  to  some  degree  practical 
in  the  accurate  sense  of  the  word.  Even  in  those 
discursive  studies  which  appear  to  be  but  a  de- 
scription of  the  species  that  occupy  the  earth, 
the  classifications  are  made  and  the  names  applied 
always  with  a  view  to  conduct,  even  though  that 
conduct  be  merely  mental.  And  it  is  only  this 
that  distinguishes  their  language  from  the  lan- 
guage of  the  poetic. 

Once  more,  imagine  two  people  walking  in  lei- 
sure, and  this  time  along  the  roadside.  It  is  sum- 
mer and  the  yellow-birds  are  holding  their 
sprightly  revels  among  the  milkweed  blossoms 
there,  dancing  along  before  them  as  they  go. 

"Regular  little  biUterflies,  aren't  they?"  says 
one. 

"Yes,"  says  the  other  faintly,  and  then,  with 
emphasis:  "It  is  the  American  goldfinch,  you 
know — a  grosbeak,'' 


32  ENJOYIVIENT  OF  POETRY 

These  are  the  two  ways  of  being,  as  we  say, 
interested  in  the  birds.  They  are  the  two  ways 
of  being  interested  in  everything  in  the  world, 
and  calHng  it  by  name.  But  in  no  other  place 
^vill  you  find  the  opposition  of  poetic  and  prac- 
tical terminology  more  exquisitely  set  forth 
than  in  the  bird-neighbor  books  and  wild-flower 
guides  of  modern  times.  There,  side  by  side,  you 
may  read  them — on  the  one  line,  labels  picked 
from  a  language  whose  poetry  is  dead,  and  ap- 
plied by  earnest  minds  to  serve  the  business  of 
intellectual  manipulation  and  accurate  reference, 
and,  on  the  other  line,  names  bestowed  in  living 
syllables  by  the  hearts  of  rural  people  in  happy 
moments  of  carefree  and  vivid  experience.  Trail- 
ing Arbutus,  Bouncing  Bet,  Dragon's  Blood,  Beg- 
gar's Buttons,  Nose-bleed,  Gay  Feather,  Heart-o'- 
the-earth,  Ruby-throat,  Firetail,  Hell  Diver, 
Solitary  Vireo,  Vesper  Sparrow — these  are  the 
words  for  those  who  care  but  to  feel  and  cele- 
brate the  qualities  of  things. 

And  in  the  lavish  persistence,  and  in  the  truth, 
of  these  meadow  names,  holding  their  own  against 
so  much  Latin,  there  is  a  lesson  in  humility  for  all 
science.  It  is  about  twenty-three  hundred  years 
now  that  scientific  people  have  been  constructing 
a  world  in  systematic  opposition  to  the  world  of 
the  poetic,  until  in  certain  conmiunities  things 


NAMES  PRACTICAL  AND  POETIC    33 

have  become  exceedingly  strained,  and  commu- 
nication between  those  Hving  in  the  two  worlds 
is  wellnigh  impossible.  Here  is  so  simple  and 
commonly  regarded  an  object  as  water,  for  in- 
stance. The  scientific  have  named  it  "HgO." 
The  poetic  name  it  "wet** — ^not  to  say  "bab- 
bling," "wild,"  and  so  forth.  Each  professes  to 
name  it  with  regard  to  its  intrinsic  and  most  real 
and  final  nature,  and  hence  arises  the  central 
problem  of  modern  philosophy,  and  the  great 
task  of  modern  philosophy — to  discover  a  mode 
of  sociability  between  the  extremes  of  the  poetic 
and  the  practical  world. 

Is  the  right  name  of  water  wet,  or  is  it  HgO? 
That  is  the  great  argument  between  them.  And 
only  in  our  own  times  has  it  begun  to  be  clear 
that  unto  eternity  neither  side  will  ever  give  in, 
and  that  the  only  thing  for  persons  to  do  who  are 
in  a  hurry,  or  wish  to  be  larger  than  either  science 
or  poetry,  is  to  confess  that  it  is  probably  both. 
Yet,  after  acknowledging  this,  those  who  came 
from  the  poetic  side  of  the  argument  might  be 
permitted  to  stipulate  that,  if  there  is  to  be  any 
doubt  allowed  as  to  the  correctness  of  either  name, 
that  doubt  shall  cHng  to  the  scientific  one.  For 
since  science  arises  out  of  the  impulse  to  alter  and 
achieve,  and  poetry  out  of  the  very  love  of  the 
actual,  there  is  more  danger  that  science  will 


34  ENJOYMENT  OF  POETRY 

build  too  much  intellectual  stuff  into  things,  than 
that  poetry  will.  Science  inevitably  ideahzes; 
poetry  is  primarily  determined  to  reaHze.  The 
poetic  name  points  to  the  object,  the  practical 
name  points  from  the  object.  And  if  there  were 
to  be  a  crisis  between  them,  if  all  feeling  and  all 
endeavor  were  suddenly  to  cease,  and  the  dispas- 
sionate material  of  each  long-suffering  reality 
somehow  to  move  forward  and  declare  itself,  I 
think  that  the  name  this  one  would  most  surely  de- 
clare, upon  that  day  of  the  death  of  metaphysics, 
would  be  "wet.''  It  might  even  be  "babbling," 
not  to  say  "wild." 

One  thing  is  certain,  however,  and  that  is  that 
we  need  not  soon  anticipate  such  a  day,  nor  hope 
for  the  death  of  metaphysics.  And  in  the  mean- 
time, which  is  forever,  the  key  and  the  solution, 
the  only  one  that  mortals  will  find,  of  the  con- 
flict within  them  between  these  two  kinds  of 
names,  is  to  decline  to  regard  them  as  rivals,  but, 
taking  their  difference  to  be  a  difference  between 
two  impulses  of  life,  to  avail  themselves  upon  the 
appropriate  occasions  of  each. 

"Effulgence  of  bright  essence  increate"  is  a 
name  that  John  Milton  gave  to  hght.  He  gave 
it,  perhaps,  in  the  pain  and  ecstasy  of  vivid  re- 
membrance, in  blindness.  At  least  he  sought  with 
all  hi^  power  to  convey,  enriched  by  intellect. 


NAMES  PRACTICAL  AND  POETIC    35 

the  naive  sense  of  the  being  of  light.  In  the  same 
century  a  different  but  equally  supreme  genius, 
Isaac  Newton,  following  the  Greeks,  gave  to 
light  the  name  "  corpuscular  emission."  He  gave 
it  in  his  laboratory,  in  the  mature  activity  of  an 
intense  mind  bent  upon  learning  the  terms  in 
which  the  world  is  to  be  dealt  with.  Now,  both 
these  high  efforts,  Milton's  as  poetry  and  New- 
ton's as  science,  may  be  said  to  have  failed. 
Milton  did  not  convey  a  sense  of  the  being  of 
light,  fundamentally  because  light  is  not  similar 
to  the  Latin  language;  and  Newton  did  not  leam 
entirely  well  to  deal  with  light,  because  it  is  not 
very  similar  to  corpuscles.  But  does  not  this 
make  all  the  more  obvious  the  folly  of  our  be- 
coming exercised  over  the  conflict  between  them, 
as  though  the  world  were  not  large  enough  and 
time  long  enough  to  hold  both  Milton  and  New- 
ton, and  others  who  shall  in  part  supersede  or 
excel  them  both? 

Only  when  the  practical  usurps  the  empire  of 
the  poetic,  or  the  poetic  denies  an  ultimate  sanc- 
tion to  the  practical,  do  they  become  rivals — 
rivals  for  a  supremacy  that  no  real  names  can 
have.  For  there  is  a  large  democracy  in  nature. 
The  world  itself  is  not  dogmatic.  It  both  lends 
its  support  to  a  number  of  practical  assumptions, 
and  consents  to  be  in  some  measure  what  any 


36  ENJOYMENT  OF  POETRY 

poetic  mind  perceives  it.  The  mind,  in  truth,  does 
not  impose  itself  upon  a  world  of  other  things,  but 
is  itself  a  part  of  things  so  far  as  they  engender 
experience.  The  poetic  impulse  is  a  love  of  that 
experience  for  its  own  sake.  Poetic  creation 
begins  in  us  when  we  marry,  with  such  love,  the 
images  of  memory  to  the  impressions  of  sense, 
and  when  to  this  union  we  set  the  seal  of  a  vivid 
and  communicable  name  we  are  poets  in  the  full 
and  divine  sense.  We  are  makers  of  a  world. 
For  if  there  is  any  creation  in  all  history,  poetic 
names  are  creators.  And  the  man  who  lives  his 
life  in  apathy  or  expeditious  indifference  to  them 
— the  world  will  never  attain  a  full  being  in  that 
man's  experience. 


CHAPTER  m 
THE  TECHNIQUE  OF  NAMES 

It  is  to  be  hoped  that  this  too  continuous  itera- 
tion  of  "poetic"  and  "practical"  has  begot  a 
degree  of  antagonism  in  the  reader,  because  now 
he  will  need  some  emotional  momentum  to  carry 
him  through  a  heavy  passage.  We  cannot  fully 
celebrate  the  possibilities  of  poetic  names,  until 
we  have  made  clear  and  easy  to  our  understand- 
ing the  mental  functions  that  all  names  in  their 
first  appHcation  perform.  It  is  just  this  amount 
of  analytic  psychology  the  lack  of  which,  in  lit- 
erary critics  and  others  who  write  books  about 
books,  is  so  disastrous  to  our  love  of  literature. 
It  is  the  thing  that  will  some  day  save  us  from 
them;  therefore  let  us  study  and  learn  it. 

Experience  is  a  continuous  process  of  choice 
and  comparison,  selecting  one  thing  and  corre- 
lating that  in  the  mind  with  another.  I  believe 
that  choice  and  comparison  are  in  some  degree 
present  every  time  that  any  one  is  really  con- 
scious of  anything.  It  is  easy  to  show  that  choice 
is  always  present;  you  have  only  to  go  some- 
where, and  stand  still,  and  reflect  how  many 
37 


38  ENJOYMENT  OF  POETRY 

things  there  are  about  you  which  you  are  not 
seeing.  Existence  is  too  full  for  you.  You  see 
only  the  things  that  your  tastes  and  purposes 
determine,  and  of  these  you  see  sharply  only  such 
features  as  affect  those  tastes  and  purposes. 
Other  persons  will  see  other  things,  and  other 
features  of  the  same  things. 

Suppose  that  you  are  standing  by  the  side  of 
the  road,  and  a  horse  and  wagon  jogs  by.  You 
see  the  horse  and  wagon,  and  you  observe  that  it 
is  picturesque.  The  horse  is  shaggy,  a  strawberry 
roan.  But  suppose  that  there  is  a  farmer  stand- 
ing beside  you,  and  he  sees  it  too;  he  observes 
that  the  horse  is  lazy,  ewe-necked,  pot-bellied,  has 
a  ring-bone  on  the  left  hind  foot,  and  other  feat- 
ures which  relate  to  the  purposes  of  agriculture. 
How  different  is  yoiu*  perception  from  his,  though 
you  are  looking  the  same  way  and  standing  almost 
in  the  same  tracks!  It  might  be,  indeed,  if  you 
chose  to  look  a  different  way,  and  if  you  happened 
to  have  that  genius  for  concentrating  yourself 
upon  what  you  do  see  which  is  called  absent- 
mindedness — it  might  be  that  you  would  never  be 
aware  there  was  a  horse  there  at  all,  or  so  much  as 
the  noise  of  a  wagon.  Thales  of  Aliletus,  the 
father  of  philosophy,  owes  the  half  of  his  reputa- 
tion to  the  fact  that  he  once  walked  out  into  the 
yard  in  a  state  of  such  rapt  examination  of  the 


THE  TECHNIQUE  OF  NAMES       39 

stars  that  he  fell  into  his  own  well,  and  imparted 
a  kind  of  ridiculous  dignity  to  the  pursuit  of 
scientific  knowledge  that  it  has  never  lost. 

To  show  that  comparison  or  correlation,  as  well 
as  choice,  is  present  in  consciousness,  may  be  a 
little  more  diflScult.  But  if  we  remember  that 
"shaggy"  and  "picturesque"  are  ideas  which, 
derived  from  other  horses  and  other  experiences, 
were  stored  away  in  our  minds,  and  that  it  is  now 
these  ideas  themselves  which  step  forward  and 
select  the  features  of  this  horse  and  join  with  it 
to  constitute  a  perception,  and  that  without  the 
ideas  no  clear  perception,  and  no  clear  horse, 
could  be — if  we  remember  that,  we  shall  see  that 
comparison  is  only  a  little  hidden  in  the  very  act 
of  choice  itself.  In  strawberry  roan  it  is  not  even 
hidden,  for  we  have  brought  out  into  our  memories 
the  very  thing  with  which  the  horse  is  compared. 
He  is  like  a  strawberry — ^in  color,  at  least,  some- 
thing like  a  decayed  strawberry.  In  picturesque 
he  is  "like  a  picture."  But  in  shaggy  also,  he  is 
"  like  other  things  that  have  given  us  the  idea  of 
shagginess."  Always  the  mind  is  thus  fitting 
materials  chosen  from  the  present  into  patterns 
which  it  brings  with  it  out  of  the  past.  And  this 
activity  when  it  becomes  explicit  we  call  thought, 
and  when  it  becomes  articulate  we  call  it  naming 
things. 


40  ENJOYMENT  OF  POETRY 

Therefore,  in  every  fresh  application  of  a  name 
we  can  discern  two  acts:  first,  the  choice  of  a 
detail  in  the  thing  named,  and  second,  com- 
parison in  that  detail  of  the  thing  named  with 
other  things.  These  two  acts  are  always  in  a 
certain  sense  one,  for  it  is  the  memory  that  makes 
the  choice.  Naming  things  is  like  cutting  dough- 
nuts: here  is  an  undifferentiated  mass  of  dough, 
upon  which  the  cutter,  which  remembers  the  char- 
acter of  other  doughnuts,  descends  and  makes 
after  that  character  a  definite  excerpt.  Exactly 
thus  a  word  descends  into  a  general  impression 
and  selects  out  a  clear  experience.  It  selects  an 
experience  similar  to  the  ones  which  it  remem- 
bers. But  since  in  this  process  sometimes  the 
act  of  selecting,  and  sometimes  the  act  of  re- 
membering, is  emphasized,  we  can  divide  names 
accordingly  into  two  classes.  There  are  names 
which  predominantly  choose,  and  names  which 
predominantly  compare.  The  words  shaggy  and 
lazyt  for  example,  choose  a  feature  of  the  horse, 
but  they  leave  those  memories  with  which  it  is  to 
be  compared,  undefined.  Pot-bellied  and  straw- 
berry  roan,  on  the  other  hand,  not  only  choose 
the  part  and  the  color,  but  they  also  declare  the 
comparison  to  a  remembered  pot  and  a  remem- 
bered strawberry.  All  names  are  of  one  or  the 
other  of  these  two  types. 


THE  TECHNIQUE  OF  NAMES       41 

With  this  much  technical  wisdom,  then — if 
anything  technical  can  be  called  wisdom — let  us 
return  to  our  distinction  between  the  poetic  name 
and  the  practical.  We  observe  that  their  tech- 
nique so  far  is  the  same;  they  both  of  them  choose 
and  compare.  But  practical  names  choose  dif- 
ferent features  in  an  object  from  poetic  names, 
and  they  compare  the  object  with  different  mem- 
ories. 

Poison-flower  is  a  practical  name  which  chooses; 
it  chooses  the  feature  of  its  object  which  is  of  vital 
importance  to  conduct.  Scarlet-berry  is  a  poetic 
name  for  the  same  plant.  Ruminant,  as  naming 
a  lamb,  is  also  practically  selective,  although  its 
importance  is  for  intellectual  more  than  physical 
conduct.  Blunt  and  woolly ,  on  the  other  hand, 
gives  you  no  scientific  indication  but  a  feeling  of 
the  Iambus  being  here. 

Undulations  is  the  name  which,  since  Newton's 
attempt  failed,  the  scientific  have  given  to  light. 
It  is  a  name  which  not  only  chooses  from  its  ob- 
ject features  discovered  with  great  labor  and  inge- 
nuity, but  compares  that  object  with  another  in 
which  the  same  features  are  more  simple  and 
obvious.  It  compares  light  to  the  motion  of 
waves  in  a  disturbed  fluid.  It  does  this  in  order 
to  enable  us  to  deal  with  light,  and  adjust  our- 
selves to  it  the  better.    But  light  may  truly  be 


42  ENJOYMExNT  OF  POETRY 

compared  to  a  great  many  other  things.  It  may 
be  compared  to  the  high  notes  of  a  flute,  it  may  be 
compared  to  knowledge,  or  to  the  idea  of  perfec- 
tion, or  to  joy.  If  I  call  light  "the  joy  of  morn- 
ing," I  have  a  name  which  compares  and  corre- 
lates two  things  as  well  as  "undulation,"  but  it 
does  so  with  a  different  motive  and  a  different 
result.  It  does  not  enable  you  to  deal  with  light 
any  better,  but  it  promotes  your  realization  of  its 
intrinsic  nature.  It  is  with  this  aim  that  poetic 
names  choose  and  compare. 

Homer  could  never  seem  to  speak  of  dogs  but 
he  would  allude  to  their  "white  teeth,"  choosing 
that  sharp  feature  to  generate  a  sense  of  their 
presence.  He  would  never  say  the  sea,  but  it  was 
"  the  wine-dark  sea,"  comparing  it  for  intensifica- 
tion with  something  else  so  richly  luminous.  The 
feature  of  Hector  is  "the  beamy  helm,"  and  the 
inevitable  comparison  for  Juno  is  "her  ox-like 
eyes."  But  we  need  not  go  to  Homer,  nor  to  any 
poetry  book,  or  book  whatever,  to  find  the  world 
enriched  with  names.  People  with  this  propen- 
sity to  stimulating  choice  and  comparison,  and 
the  gift  of  speech,  are  not  wanting  in  any  village 
of  the  earth  to-day.  "Ye  came  over  that  hill 
like  a  greased  mouse,"  was  Jerry  Chambers's 
greeting  to  an  automobile  party  that  stopped  for 
a  drink  of  water  at  his  well.    And  "Ain't  this  a 


THE  TECHNIQUE  OF  NAMES       43 

singin'  mominT'  is  a  word  from  the  same  source, 
"You  feel  as  if  you  was  gettin'  born  I" 

Poems  did  not  arise  in  books,  nor  in  closet 
ecstasies  either,  but  they  arose  upon  the  tongues 
of  vagrants.  Souls  whose  way  was  to  take  a 
wandering  taste  of  all  the  toils  and  sorrows  and 
battles  and  festive  delights  of  the  people  on  the 
earth,  and  talk  and  sing  as  they  went — ^they  were 
the  poets.  And  they  were  the  teachers  too,  for  in 
those  days  there  was  no  sense  of  the  difference 
between  the  words  of  poetry  and  those  of  prac- 
tice. Beautiful  unions  of  a  brave  attempt  at 
scientific  nomenclature  with  insuppressible  poetry 
looking  through  occurred  commonly  then,  as  they 
still  occur  and  will  always  in  the  language  of 
childhood. 

Children  are  often  intolerant  of  poetry  in  books, 
because  they  have  it  in  the  reality.  They  need 
no  literary  assistance  in  getting  acquainted  with 
the  live  quaUties  of  objects,  or  endowing  them 
with  their  true  names.  Their  minds  are  like  skies 
full  of  floating  imagery,  and  with  this  they  evoke 
the  inmost  essences  out  of  common  things,  dis- 
covering kinships  in  nature  incredible  to  science 
and  intolerable  to  common  sense. 

The  toast  is  a  "zebra.** 

"Nothing  with  a  tail"  is  a  snake. 

The  cat  purring  is  a  "bumblecat." 


44  EXJOY]MEXT  OF  POETRY 

The  white  eggs  in  the  incubator  have  "blos- 
somed." 

But  education  soon  robs  them  of  this  quaintness. 
They  are  taught  that  they  must  get  understand- 
ing, they  must  not  hnger  and  behold.  After  edu- 
cation has  thus  reduced  them,  however,  and  taken 
away  their  many-colored  world,  they  will  often 
recall  with  pathetic  pleasure  a  few  of  the  phrases 
that  fell  from  them  in  those  lost  days  of  contact 
with  things  as  they  are.  In  the  same  way  we 
recall  the  names  that  were  bestowed  when  all  the 
world  was  young,  and  men  devoted  to  science 
itself  had  not  lost  a  sense  of  those  first-hand  reali- 
ties whose  enrichment  will  ultimately  give  to 
science  the  only  sanction  that  it  can  have.  Hera- 
cleitus  the  Dark,  the  greatest  of  the  Greeks  who 
first  devised  momentous  new  words  for  the  world 
— ^imperious  and  passionate  genius  in  the  child- 
hood of  thought — ^he  knew  the  world  both  as  it 
lives  and  as  it  may  be  dealt  with,  nor  ever  clearly 
distinguished  them,  but  his  science  is  poetry  and 
his  poetry  is  science,  carrying  both  conviction 
and  fire  of  reahty  into  the  hearts  of  men  to  the 
end  of  time. 

What  shall  be  the  true  name  of  the  soul?  he 
asks  himself.  The  soul  is  Flame!  That  is  the 
hNdng  principle,  the  poignant  instant  of  all  nat- 
ure, union  of  change  and  constancy,  both  ter- 


THE  TECHNIQUE  OF  NAMES       45 

rible  and  beautiful,  and,  like  thought,  supremely 
real.  Not  only  a  stirring  epithet  is  this,  to  wake 
you  into  poetry  and  life;  it  is  also  a  vital  union 
of  two  things  upon  which  the  integrity  of  his 
science  and  his  working  faith  depends.  You  must 
be  temperate,  he  says,  because  of  this  flame  sub- 
stance that  illumines  you;  you  must  be  temper- 
ate especially  in  drink — keep  dry  within.  "A 
dry  soul  is  the  wisest." 

Such  writings  are  no  more.  We  are  grown  up 
and  sophisticated,  and  we  have  acquired  the 
knowledge  of  science  and  poetry.  We  call  these 
noble  perceptions  "mere  figures  of  speech";  by 
which  we  mean,  or  ought  to  mean,  that  they 
create  unions  which,  although  contributing  to 
the  wealth  of  immediate  experience,  cannot  to 
any  extent  be  acted  upon.  Our  ideal  in  maturity 
is  not  to  confuse  with  them  the  unions  which 
indicate  conduct,  nor  ever  to  mistake  the  one 
kind  of  speaking  for  the  other. 

In  the  pursuit  of  practical  knowledge  we  apply 
names  which  select  in  an  experience  the  details 
that  are  important,  whether  for  our  special  pur- 
pose or  for  general  human  purposes;  and  we  unite 
that  experience  through  such  names  with  other 
experiences  that  are  familiar  and  toward  which 
we  have  an  established  attitude  or  reaction.  The 
purpose  of  it  all  is  adjustment.     In  the  pursuit 


46  ENJOYMENT  OF  POETRY 

of  poetic  expression  we  apply  names  which  select 
in  an  experience  details  which  are  salient^  offering 
a  good  focus  for  the  receptive  attention,  and  we 
unite  that  experience  through  such  names  with 
other  experiences  which  are  surprising  or  stimu- 
lating, which  give  pause  and  alertness  to  the  mind. 
The  purpose  of  this  is  reaUzation. 


CHAPTER  IV 
THE  TECHNIQUE  OF  POETIC  NAMES 

Terms  are  commonly  supposed  to  perform  the 
two  functions  of  indicating  things  and  suggesting 
their  significance  in  human  economy.  But  be- 
sides indicating  things,  and  without  relating  them 
at  all  to  human  economy,  they  continually  per- 
form this  third  function  of  enriching  the  very  ex- 
perience of  the  things.  Until  this  is  understood, 
the  natural  origin  of  poetry  will  not  be  understood. 
We  add  the  names  to  the  things  in  order  to  en- 
hance our  participation  in  their  being.  Here  is 
the  expression,  from  a  nature  utterly  poetic,  of 
the  state  of  mind  which  such  a  use  of  names  ful- 
fils: 

"When  I  am  in  a  room  with  people,  if  I  ever 
am  free  from  speculating  upon  the  creations  of 
my  own  brain,  then  not  myself  goes  home  to  my- 
self, but  the  identity  of  every  one  in  the  room 
begins  to  press  upon  me  [so]  that  I  am  in  a  very 
little  time  annihilated.  Not  only  among  men; 
it  would  be  the  same  in  a  nursery  of  children." 

*'.  .  .  if  a  sparrow  come  before  my  window,  I 
47 


48  ENJOYIVIENT  OF  POETRY 

take  part  in  its  existence,  and  pick  about  the 
gravel."  ^ 

It  is  marvellous  to  know  that  mere  words,  with 
their  little  acts  of  selecting  and  comparing,  could 
contribute  anything  to  vivify  the  experience  of 
one  so  sensitive  to  reality.  Yet  it  is  true  that  he 
could  hardly  look  upon  a  thing  he  loved  without 
longing  for  the  poetic  name  and  searching  it  out, 
whether  in  the  language  of  others  or  in  his  own 
mind.  It  is  marvellous,  indeed,  because  words 
are  such  tiny  dry  bits  of  things  compared  with 
the  great  flush  objects  that  the  worid  is  full  of. 
And  yet  if  we  remember  how  intimate  and  strong 
a  part  these  Httle  words  have  played  in  the  very 
making  of  those  objects  what  they  are  in  our  ex- 
perience, we  shall  understand  how  it  is  that  the 
poetic  love  them.  They  love  the  appropriate 
name — ^whether  it  be  a  name  that  selects  or  a 
name  that  compares — because  through  it  they 
are  able  in  a  way  to  encompass  with  conscious- 
ness the  object  to  which  it  is  applied. 

As  for  the  first  kind,  the  selective  poetic  name, 
its  value  for  this  purpose  is  simple  to  understand. 
It  guides  the  attention  to  a  focus.  And  this  ser- 
vice, though  it  may  seem  slight  in  the  proposal, 
is  in  fact  very  great,  and  for  the  majority  indis- 

^  Quoted  from  letters  of  John  Keats.  W.  M.  Rossetti's 
••Life/' pp.  154-155. 


TECHNIQUE  OF  POETIC  NAMES    49 

pensable  to  the  acute  realization  of  anything. 
Even  to  that  lucky  few  who  are  by  nature  awake 
when  their  eyes  are  open,  the  living  word  is  no 
superfluity.  He  who  can  speak  it,  who  can  some- 
times catch  the  humor  of  their  sensibility  and 
crystallize  it  upon  a  point,  is  as  dear  to  them  as 
he  is  tedious  who  can  neither  select  a  focus  nor 
remain  silent,  but  spreads  adjectives  all  over  the 
face  of  nature. 

It  is  difficult  to  exemplify  this  gift,  because  in 
life  the  applicability  of  the  choicest  name  is  so 
often  transient  and  specific.  Some  old  white 
horse  may  look  exactly  "as  if  he  had  been  used 
to  scratch  matches  on,"  but  this  would  be  one 
out  of  a  million  white  horses.  Certain  water- 
weeds  in  a  swift  stream  may  be  called  "yearning," 
but  not  so  all  water-weeds  in  all  streams.  Per- 
haps you  have  heard  some  one  speak  of  the  "  suck- 
ing utterance"  of  a  person,  or  the  "dancing"  of  a 
voice,  or  the  "shadowy  haste"  of  a  gray  cat,  and 
while  the  suitability  of  the  word  at  the  moment 
was  so  great  as  to  make  a  little  crisis  in  expe- 
rience, it  could  hardly  be  reproduced  after  the 
moment  was  gone. 

And  yet  poetic  words  which  are  generally,  or 
again  and  again,  applicable,  abide  in  the  memories 
of  some  people,  and  come  out  at  the  appropriate 
times  to  help  them  see.     How  many  there  must 


50  ENJOYMENT  OF  POETRY 

be  wandering  in  the  world  who  can  never  look  at 
minnows  in  a  brook  but  they  see  them  stay  "  their 
wavy  bodies  'gainst  the  streams,"  or  listen  to  the 
gray  flies  but  they  hear  them  wind  their  "sultry 
horn."  Doubtless  there  is  a  special  passion  for 
the  word  in  some,  and  others  just  as  poetic  are 
less  articulate  in  their  modes  of  realization.  But 
the  average  man  is  so  deeply  social  that  some 
part  of  the  machinery  of  communication  is  present 
in  his  simplest  perception.  The  more  aHve  he  is, 
the  more  likely  is  a  word  hovering  near  his  lips. 

"MiUion-footed  Manhattan"  is  not  the  name 
to  guide  you  in  making  your  way  to  the  metropo- 
lis, but  if  it  chances  to  echo  perfectly  in  your 
mind,  it  gives  a  gift  to  the  journey. 

'^Million-footed  Manhattan,  unpent,  descends  to  her  pave- 
ments." 

So  of  the  minnows — ^when  you  watch  them  now, 
those  "wavy"  bodies,  and — 

"How  they  ever  wrestle 
With  their  own  sweet  delight,  and  ever  nestle 
Their  silver  bellies  on  the  pebbly  sand" — 

you  know  them  as  they  existed  for  one  with  the 
supreme  gift  of  realization.  You  know  them  more 
intimately,  and  you  like  them  better. 

"Here  are  sweet-peas,"  he  said,  "on  tip-toe  for 
a  flight"— a  phrase  which  will  give  grace,  better 


TECHNIQUE  OF  POETIC  NAMES    51 

than  water,  to  your  garden.  For  words  make 
the  world  grow — not,  I  think,  because  they  ex- 
press a  feelmg,  for  that  means  that  they  relieve 
you  of  it,  but  because  they  give  to  the  feeling 
locality  and  distinct  body.  It  comes  down  like 
dew  out  of  the  general  air  and  alights  here  in  a 
bright  drop. 

Even  without  a  word,  it  is  thus  that  we  make 
what  we  love  our  own.  Notice  how  specific  you 
become  in  the  presence  of  a  loved  object,  and  how 
all  your  tenderness  or  your  delight  seems  to  dis- 
til itself  and  hang  upon  a  certain  motion  of  that 
object,  or  a  certain  pencilling,  or  shining  glance, 
or  shadow.  It  is  no  strange,  ancient,  or  bookish 
trick  to  greet  things  with  epithets;  it  is  the  way 
the  mind  always  welcomes  an  experience.  And 
the  more  hot  and  electric  its  passion  for  that 
experience,  the  more  it  narrows  itself  to  a  single 
item  and  condenses  there  the  whole  ecstasy.  In 
the  midst  of  such  passion,  to  be  able  to  select  with 
perfect  intuition  or  judgment  the  item  that  will 
support  and  enhance  it,  is  the  first  half  of  the 
poetic  gift. 

The  second  half,  and  that  which  is  more  sus- 
ceptible of  cultivation,  is  the  power  to  evoke  into 
the  clear  light  of  thought  those  specific  memories 
of  similar  things  that  hover  above  every  acute 
perception.    The    chambers   of   all   minds   are 


52  ENJOYMENT  OF  POETRY 

stored  with  them;  they  are  latent  in  every  com- 
mon nomi,  or  verb,  or  adjective,  or  adverb;  so 
natural  to  us  that  in  childhood  we  have  trouble 
to  distinguish  them  from  the  sensible  reality,  and 
yet  for  most  of  us  in  maturity  blurred  into  non- 
existence by  custom  and  the  pressure  of  affairs. 
But  linger  to  taste  the  flavor  of  any  moment  in 
your  experience,  and  you  will  find  vistas  opening 
backward  into  other  experiences  which  clarify 
and  intensify  it.    They  determine  its  being. 

So  essential  is  this  union  of  two  things  similar 
in  difference  to  the  very  existence,  or  definition, 
of  human  consciousness,  that  we  cannot  help 
beheving  it  describes  all  consciousness,  both  in 
its  essence  and  in  its  origin.  It  is  the  comfort- 
able fortune  of  a  clam  to  be  so  limited  in  sensa- 
tions that  the  experience  of  to-day  is  almost 
exactly  the  same  as  the  experience  of  yesterday, 
and  may  be  dealt  'with  in  the  same  manner. 
Hence  almost  his  whole  life  must  be  as  unprovok- 
ing  to  him  as  the  Httle  daily  act  of  buttoning  and 
unbuttoning  is  to  us.  He  is  hardly  ever  roused 
into  awareness  of  his  environment  at  all.  Noth- 
ing will  rouse  him,  indeed,  but  an  accident — the 
discomfort  of  an  unfamiliar  sensation.  This  he 
will  have  to  attend  to,  and  in  some  flickering 
adumbration  of  genuine  perception,  decide  to 
which  of  the  old  sensations  it  is  most  similar,  and 


TECHNIQUE  OF  POETIC  NAMES    53 

respond  to  it  accordingly.  His  being  conscious 
in  that  moment  depends  upon  the  shock  of  dif- 
ference and  the  need  of  similarity.  It  is  an  act 
of  uniting  or  identifying  two  things  that  are 
similar  although  different. 

And  so  is  all  consciousness,  in  a  profound  way 
of  speaking,  a  uniting  of  two  things  that  are 
similar  in  difference.  In  the  practical  or  onward 
course  of  evolution  it  was  only  thus,  as  a  detector 
of  similitude,  that  consciousness  ever  arose.  And 
since  we  are  all,  by  the  continuing  irony  of  nat- 
ure, essentially  practical  and  onward,  it  is  still 
only  thus  that  consciousness  appears  in  us.  As 
soon  as  we  become  genuinely  aware  of  anything, 
we  are  already  receiving  a  hint  or  intimation  of 
its  likeness  to  something  else.  We  are  uniting 
the  present  with  the  past;  for  this  function  our 
minds  exist. 

And  therefore  it  is  no  great  exaggeration  to  say 
that  one  who  cannot  perform  this  function,  and 
who  never  responds  to  an  intimation  of  similarity, 
has  no  mind  at  all,  but  belongs  among  the  mol- 
lusks  or  the  dead.  Only  we  must  not  make  the 
mistake  of  identifying  with  one  who  does  not 
respond  to  any  similarity,  one  whose  response  is 
to  abhor  all  those  that  are  poetic,  or  presented 
for  the  sake  of  consciousness  itself.  He  is  not 
a  clam  but  a  practical  man.    A  clam,  indeed, 


54  ENJOYMENT  OF  POETRY 

would  be  more  likely,  upon  the  stimulus  of  some 
boisterous  morning  current,  to  glance  round 
among  certain  irrelevant  sensations  of  his  just 
to  "see  what  they  are  like,"  than  would  the  prac- 
tical man  to  contemplate  for  the  wink  of  an  eye- 
lash a  poetic  simiHtude.  He  calls  them  mere 
metaphors,  and  thinks  that  in  so  doing  he  has 
relegated  them  to  a  region  as  far  off  as  possible 
from  the  righteous  business  of  scientific,  effective, 
or  "real"  identification. 

Yet  they  are  exactly  the  same  thing,  with  the 
same  basis  in  reahty,  only  free  from  the  domina- 
tion of  prospective  conduct  and  employed  for  the 
sake  of  reahty  itself.  They  are  correlations  pro- 
posed, without  reference  to  action,  by  those  who 
desire  consciousness  for  its  own  sake.  It  is  as 
though  the  poets,  seeing  that  we  are  all  so  bhndly 
practical — we  are  made  like  tops  to  go  to  sleep 
running  unless  something  upsets  us — ^had  deter- 
mined to  rouse  us  out  of  this  too  mechanical  con- 
dition, and  show  us  the  world.  And  they  have 
discovered  an  adroit  and  profound  method  for 
accompUshing  this.  Instead  of  interrupting  our 
operations  and  making  us  wake  only  to  the  inter- 
ruption, they  insert  into  our  minds  direct  the 
very  essence  of  wakefulness — similarity  in  dif- 
ference— and  make  us  wake  to  anything  under 
the  sun  that  they  choose.    And  that  is  the  expla- 


TECHNIQUE  OF  POETIC  NAMES    55 

nation,  if  for  so  original  a  fact  explanation  is  pos- 
sible, of  the  value  to  poetic  perception  of  the 
names  which  compare. 

It  is  customary  in  books  about  rhetoric  and 
prosody  to  state,  as  an  elucidation  of  certain 
figures  of  speech,  that  the  cultivated  mind  takes 
a  peculiar  delight  in  apprehending  a  similarity  in 
difference — a.  statement  which  is  accepted  in  si- 
lence by  the  obedient  pupil,  and  harbored  in  his 
true  heart  as  one  more  evidence  of  the  triviahty 
of  the  cultivated  mind  and  the  great  fooHshness  of 
having  one.  But  we  ought  to  state  the  case  in 
this  way:  that  mind,  so  far  as  we  can  distinguish 
it,  is  similarity  in  difference,  it  is  a  state  of 
comparison,  and  what  it  takes  delight  in  is  the 
experience  of  the  nature  of  things.  Such  a  state- 
ment, besides  approximating  the  truth,  would 
have  the  advantage  of  suggesting  to  the  pupil 
that  his  mind  is  probably  a  good  deal  more 
poetic  than  that  of  his  cultivated  teacher. 

Imagine  that  we  hear,  or  rather  we  are  seized 
by,  a  loud  and  prolonged  whistle-blast  from  across 
the  river.  It  ends  abruptly,  and  while  some  are 
trying  in  a  maimdering  way  to  say  that  the  change 
seemed  very  sharp,  one  whom  we  will  call  the 
poet,  or  the  namer,  states  that  "you  feel  as  if  you 
had  been  over  there  and  got  back."  Will  this 
be  a  special  delight  to  the  cultivated  only,  or  will 


56  ENJOYMENT  OF  POETRY 

it  be  the  common  pleasure  of  all  those  who  are 
fond  of  a  sensation  and  want  to  get  the  full  savor 
of  it?  Whatsoever  they  were  fond  of,  they  would 
love  to  have  their  vague,  fumbling,  and  yet 
unique,  awareness  of  it  suddenly  set  forth  for 
them  articulate,  and  consummate,  and  clear,  in  a 
climax  of  the  essence  of  consciousness.  And  that 
would  be  the  manifestation  not  primarily  of  a  love 
of  "similarity,"  but  of  a  love  of  the  qualities  of 
things.  And  that  is  the  love  that  is  fed  by  the 
utterances  of  the  poet  or  the  child. 

He  will  say  that  the  clouds  are  like  pop-corUf 
and  every  one  will  pause  and  look  up  at  the  sky 
with  pleasure.  Or  he  will  say  that  sumach-trees 
are  like  poor  people,  or  that  a  pewee's  note  comes 
to  you  through  the  air  like  an  arrow.  Or,  even 
in  a  more  conventionalized  and  conmaon  way,  he 
will  call  a  man  goatish,  or  half-baked,  or  off  his 
trolley;  or  he  will  say  that  he  has  butter-fingers,  as 
they  do  in  base-ball.  A  boy  gets  jumped  on  by 
the  teacher;  a  girl  is  as  gay  as  a  merry-go-round. 
These  are  all,  in  their  various  ways,  utterances 
of  the  poet  among  us,  increasing  our  taste  of  the 
reality  by  selective  comparison. 

He  it  is  that  all  down  the  path  of  human  ex- 
perience has  been  speaking,  and  has  established 
such  poetry  in  the  heart  of  language.  Nor  can  we 
in  any  way  better  understand  him,  and  these  two 


TECHNIQUE  OF  POETIC  NAMES    57 

gifts  of  his,  than  by  turning  again  to  the  dictionary 
and  looking  into  the  story  of  the  births  of  words. 
Gymnasium,  "the  place  of  nakedness,"  was  the 
work  of  a  poet  who  chose;  and  I  think  he  chose 
the  best,  as  well  as  the  most  striking,  feature 
of  his  object.  Sarcasm,  "flesh-tearing,"  was  the 
creation  of  a  poet  who  not  only  chose  but  also 
compared.  He  united  an  experience  which  is 
spiritual,  with  one  which  is  different  in  being 
physical  but  similar  in  the  sheer  quality  of  pain. 
We  said  that  he  might  call  a  man  goatish,  and 
ages  ago  in  the  word  capricious  he  has  done  so. 
In  the  word  insult  he  has  said  that  he  "got  jumped 
on."  He  has  called  men  half-baked  also,  or  at 
least  cooked  too  quick  in  the  word  precocious;  and 
in  the  word  delirious  he  has  called  them,  not  off 
their  trolley,  but  what  is  the  same  thing  in  an 
earlier  state  of  civilization,  aut  of  their  furrow. 
More  beautifully  in  a  word  Hke  moss-rose  he  has 
made  his  choice  and  comparison,  and  in  ruby^ 
throat,  and  fire-tail,  and  all  those  names  of  flowers 
and  wild  birds,  uniting  them  always  with  some- 
thing of  invasive  individuality,  and  usually  with 
something  beautiful  because  they  are  beautiful. 

Birds  were  the  first  minstrels,  and  their  notes 
slip  like  clear  joy  into  the  heart.  Who  has  not  a 
"Hail  to  thee,  blithe  spirit!"  for  the  least  of  these 
aerial  beings!    Feathered  voices,  who  can  thrill 


58  ENJOYMENT  OF  POETRY 

with  tiny  energy  acres  of  the  dull  air,  and  set 
quivering  even  in  man's  heaviest  breast  vague 
hopes  of  an  eternal  spring.  Commonly  and  of 
old  they  have  been  named  with  words  of  subtle 
discriminating  affection,  brief  perfect  utterances, 
a  poetry  of  the  people.  And  rarest  among  them 
all,  perhaps,  in  adoring  realism — rarest  of  all,  to 
one  who  knows  at  twilight  the  place  of  her  wild 
and  tender  rhapsody,  the  swamp-angel. 

Crests  of  nature's  loveliness,  thus  tuned,  thus 
dyed,  and  thus  proportioned,  the  birds  and  blos- 
soms have  won  out  of  all  tribes  a  treasury  of  poetic 
names.  And  they  who  have  the  genius  or  desire 
to  make  poignant  through  language  beings  that 
are  less  easily  or  less  quickly  loved,  will  not  alter 
the  method  here  simply  revealed.  They  will  select 
in  each  a  certain  part  or  quaUty,  and  in  a  strong 
revery  of  the  mind  unite  it  with  something  they 
remember  that  is  different,  but  in  that  high  qual- 
ity the  same.  They  will  name  it  after  that.  And 
a  world  that  is  sufficiently  drab  and  monotonous 
to  one  whose  mental  indolence  is  great,  or  who 
has  sophistication  for  an  ideal,  will  be  rich  and 
wonderful  to  them. 


CHAPTER  V 
IMAGINATIVE  REALIZATION 

In  expectation  and  revery  realization  is  often 
more  perfect  than  in  the  too  obdurate  presence  of 
things.  And  with  this  observation  we  pass  into 
a  domain  more  commonly  called  poetic.  Yet  it 
should  be  with  regret  that  we  take  farewell  of 
reality,  in  the  perception  of  which  poetry  arises, 
and  to  the  developed  perception  of  which  it  de- 
scends again  for  sanction  and  for  praise.  Ideally 
poetry  would  always  be  a  vivifying,  through  the 
magic  of  imagery  and  syllable,  of  present  expe- 
rience in  an  adventurous  world.  But  the  limita- 
tions of  time  and  space  and  individuality  are  too 
tight,  and  therefore,  provided  we  are  healthily 
rooted  in  our  own  now  and  here,  it  becomes  a 
thing  of  joy  and  benefit  to  us  that  we  can  so 
vividly  remember  and  imagine,  and  through  the 
clear  medium  of  poetic  language  realize  in  dreams 
the  experience  of  others. 

Yet  never  let  us  pass  to  a  consideration  of 
those  dreams  without  a  protest  against  the  opin- 
ion that  makes  their  unreality  the  essence  or  the 
excellence  of  them.  On  the  contrary,  their  es- 
59 


60  ENJOYIVIENT  OF  POETRY 

sence  and  their  excellence  is  the  contribution 
which  they  make  of  poignancy  and  breadth  and 
life  and  celebration,  to  the  actual  wherewith  each 
dreamer  re-engages.  And  no  more  than  science 
can  hold  sway  over  the  minds  of  men  except  as  it 
contributes  to  their  purposes  or  enlarges  them,  no 
more  can  poetry  strongly  survive  in  any  individual 
except  as  it  gives  enrichment  to  the  real  presence 
of  the  world  before  him. 

That  this  gift  of  realization  can  be  given  in  the 
absence  of  things  often  better  than  in  their  pres- 
ence, however  melancholy  it  may  be,  and  again 
suggesting  an  irony  in  nature,  is  a  very  manifest 
truth.  Greedy  people  eat  fast  instead  of  slow, 
because  their  heart's  enjoyment  lies  always  in  the 
next  bite  after  the  one  that  they  have  in  their 
mouths.  If  sensual  stimulation  were  really  equal 
to  their  expectations,  I  suppose  you  could  hardly 
induce  them  to  swallow  at  all.  Such  hyper- 
eesthetic  anticipation  is  a  part  of  the  onward  or 
practical  mechanism  of  nature,  and  so  it  may  be 
explained.  But  reminiscence  also  is  frequently 
better  than  experience,  as  is  shown  in  the  wonder- 
fully rich  and  adventurous  past  that  most  dul- 
lards are  able  to  enjoy.  How  dear  to  our  hearts 
are  the  scenes  of  our  childhood,  and  with  what 
exquisite  satisfaction  we  recall  the  old-fashioned 
winters  that  are  no  more,  and  the  reckless  skaters 


IMAGINATIVE  REALIZATION        61 

we  used  to  be  in  those  days.  In  the  city  we  com- 
plete our  love  of  the  country  and  long  to  greet  it 
again;  in  the  country,  some  afternoon  under  a 
tree,  we  get  the  full  flavor  of  our  energetic  life  in 
the  city,  and  think  we  but  half  realized  the  great 
drama  we  were  taking  part  in  all  winter. 

Here  we  are  free  from  those  practical  necessi- 
ties which  were  ever  whipping  us  forward  from 
one  thing  to  another;  we  can  loiter  over  the 
same  course  with  a  more  discursive  enthusiasm. 
A  man  in  the  pressure  of  affairs  bent  upon  taking 
life  poetically,  is  like  a  mule  trying  to  browse 
while  he  is  driven;  his  mouthfuls  will  be  hasty 
and  unsatisfying,  and  at  the  same  time  his  prog- 
ress slow.  This  is  one  of  the  reasons  why  the 
poetic  cultivate  their  power  of  reminiscence,  and 
even  learn  to  enjoy  the  finest  savors  of  an  expe- 
rience after  it  is  past. 

Not  only  do  they  outwit  necessity  by  this 
means,  however,  but  they  get  free  from  a  distrac- 
tion which  disintegrates  the  experience  of  any- 
thing actual.  Actual  things  are  never  isolated 
and  framed  for  our  enjoyment  as  things  are  in 
revery.  Things  in  memory  are  finely  focalized 
and  made  seizable,  unified,  and  indeed  perfected, 
by  the  narrowing  of  their  space  and  time  extent, 
and  the  omission  of  whatever  opposes  or  dero- 
gates from  the  feature  chosen  to  be  the  apex  of 


1^  ENJOYMENT  OF  POETRY 

our  attention  to  them.  For  as  in  the  perception 
of  things  there  is  always  a  favored  point,  still 
more  in  the  remembrance.  In  fact,  the  mind  does 
not  remember  things  at  all,  but  retains  mementos 
of  them — images,  we  say,  of  some  little,  perhaps 
trivial,  detail,  about  which  clings  a  diffuse  sense 
of  their  presence.  And  even  as  a  crucifix  or  a 
warmed  jewel  can  sometimes  more  than  console 
us  for  the  absence  of  the  thing  we  love  best  in 
the  world,  so  can  these  dyed  fragments  that  the 
mind  collects  revive  the  thrill  of  our  bodies,  re- 
vive and  concentrate  it  upon  themselves,  so  that 
they  seem  to  equal  or  surpass  the  reality. 

Perhaps  it  will  be  a  fairer  explanation,  or  at 
least  a  truer  statement,  of  this  superiority  of  the 
past,  to  say  that  in  memory,  since  there  is  so  lit- 
tle left  of  the  sense-quality  of  the  object,  there  is 
more  room  for  emotion  in  our  consciousness  of 
it.  And  this  is  true  also  of  anticipation  and  pure 
imagination.  Our  body  joins  in  the  apprehen- 
sion of  a  thing  better  when  the  thing  has  no  body 
of  its  own.  That  is  why  ghosts  are  extremely 
terrible,  because  they  are  almost  never  seen;  but 
when  they  are  seen,  if  we  can  believe  the  reports 
of  those  acquainted  with  them,  their  presence  is 
not  half  so  effective.  And  naked  bodies  are  like 
ghosts  in  this  respect.  They  are  not  seen  often 
enough.    The  carnal  appetite  is  sometimes  in- 


IMAGINATIVE  REALIZATION       63 

tolerable,  like  a  scourge,  until  it  comes  into  the 
'bare  presence  of  its  object,  when,  whether  satis- 
fied or  not,  it  becomes  quite  simple  and  manage- 
able. So  does  anger  in  some  people  faint  at  the 
encounter;  and  humiliation,  and  reverence,  and 
love,  and  wonder  appear  to  die  away  before  a 
fact,  as  many  proverbs  attest.^  Palpable  reality 
is  a  kind  of  sedative,  and  as  such  it  is  often 
avoided  by  those  who  wish  to  become  and  remain 
excited  over  the  quahties  of  things. 

Not  only  can  they  realize  many  things  better 
in  their  absence,  indeed,  but  they  can  enjoy  the 
reahzation  of  more  things.  Our  zeal  for  being 
is  immensely  extended  in  the  thought  of  it.  We 
call  that  "adventure"  in  the  retrospect  which  in 
the  event  we  called  fright;  we  call  that  "pathos" 
which  we  called  pain;  and  we  call  that  "life" 
which  was  sharp  agony  to  be  shunned  with  all 
our  force.  The  quality  of  these  experiences  is 
recalled  and  even  intensified,  but  without  that 
organic  oppressiveness  which  drowned  the  poetic 
impulse.  We  are  free  to  love  them  now  with 
the  original  love  of  being. 

And  this  freedom  that  we  have  in  revery  is 

*  Absence  makes  the  heart  grow  fonder. 

No  man  is  a  hero  to  his  valet. 

Distance  lends  enchantment. 

Familiarity  breeds  contempt. 

A  prophet  is  not  without  honor  save  in  his  own  country. 


64  ENJOYMENT  OF  POETRY 

excelled  only  by  the  freedom  of  sympathetic 
imagination,  in  which  we  transcend  even  these 
limits  of  individuahty  and  drink  in  the  experience 
of  others.  Here  our  realization  is  both  fine  and 
utterly  catholic.  If  these  others  chance  to  be 
quite  outside  the  place  and  time  of  our  H\ing,  as 
usually  the  poets  are,  we  rejoice  in  the  possession 
of  their  utmost  pains  and  passions.  That  enthu- 
siasm of  our  childhood  for  every  impress  of  the 
existing  world  that  was  endurable  and  accessible 
to  us,  is  now  extended  to  embrace  all  things  that 
ever  presented  themslves  to  the  apprehension  of 
a  man.  K  our  stomachs  are  strong — or  our 
imaginations  not  too  strong — we  are  attracted 
to  the  contemplation  in  this  way  of  things  dis- 
gusting and  lecherous  and  full  of  murder,  things 
that  issuing  or  appearing  before  us  in  soHds 
and  Hquids  would  sicken  us  to  our  entrails.  We 
are  attracted  to  all  vivid  reahzation  whatsoever, 
as  though  we  were  some  kind  of  blessed  gods  who, 
having  made  the  world,  were  satisfied  that  it  was 
good  in  every  part. 

This  opportunity  to  behold  and  praise  the  uni- 
verse we  most  of  us  owe  to  the  power  of  poetic 
words.  For  the  faculty  of  creating  realizations 
is  limited  and  unusual;  and  it  is  through  the 
names  that  others  give  to  their  own  experience, 
or  to  enlargements  upon  their  experience,  that 


IMAGINATIVE  REALIZATION        65 

usual  persons  are  enabled  to  escape  from  the 
prison  of  themselves  and  get  tastes  of  the  general 
world. 

While,  therefore,  poetic  names  are  valuable  to 
the  complete  perception  of  a  thing,  and  still  more 
to  the  clear  memory  or  expectation  of  it,  to  that 
free  realization  by  imaginative  sympathy  in  which 
we  make  all  human  experience  our  own  they  are 
absolutely  essential.  And  their  method  in  this 
culminating  fimction  is  exactly  what  it  is  in  the 
simplest  apprehension  to  which  they  contribute. 
In  naming  an  imagined  thing  they  select  parts  or 
qualities  upon  which  to  rest  the  attention,  and 
then  compare  that  thing  with  others  imagined, 
similar  in  those  parts  or  qualities.  "O  you  tem- 
ples," says  the  poet,  "fairer  than  lilies,  pour'd 
over  by  the  rising  sun!"  And  to  the  responsive 
heart  comes  a  sense  or  vision  of  these  ancient 
wonders,  more  poignant  and  more  memorable, 
perhaps,  than  if  they  had  been  actually  seen  and 
examined,  with  no  poet  there  to  speak  the  magic 
syllables. 


CHAPTER  VI 
CHOICE  AND  COMPARISON  IN  POETRY 

Poetic  choice  is  not  a  choice  of  things  to  be 
realized,  remember,  for  to  this  end  anything  may- 
be chosen.  But  poetic  choice  is  a  second  choice, 
within  the  thing  to  be  realized,  of  a  focus  that  will 
intensify  the  realization.  Suppose  that  we  are 
gazing  with  a  kind  of  vague  affection  toward  a 
summer  sky;  any  one  by  uttering  the  words  "So 
near!"  or  "The  nearness  of  it!"  can  be  pleasing  to 
us.  These  little  words  precipitate  the  thing  we 
had  in  solution.  And  theirs  is  the  simplest  artic- 
ulate poetry,  just  that  single  naming  of  a  quality 
or  part  in  the  whole  presence  of  a  thing. 

When,  however,  the  thing  is  absent — when  we 
are  not  gazing  at  a  summer  sky  at  all,  but  still 
the  poet  wishes  us  to  realize  it,  he  must  say  more 
than  a  single  word.  He  must  say  enough  both 
to  indicate  the  sky  as  a  whole,  and  then  also  the 
focal  part  or  quality.  "The  sky  so  near,"  he 
must  say,  or  "The  nearness  of  the  sky!"  And 
that  is  how  poetic  choice  appears  in  what  we  may 
call  poetry  proper,  or  imaginative  realization 
through  language.  Everywhere  its  words  are 
66 


CHOICE  AND  COMPARISON        67 

doing  two  things,  they  are  indicating  experiences 
in  general  and  then  suggesting  specific  details. 

"The  old  pond,  aye!  and  the  sound 
Of  a  frog  leaping  into  the  water," 

is  the  literal  translation  of  a  classic  poem  of  Japan, 
one  that  they  say  every  Japanese  has  by  heart. 
I  quote  it  because  it  reveals  the  act  of  poetic 
choice  so  simply.  The  general  environment,  one 
very  full  and  rich  with  beautiful  or  moving  de- 
tails, is  named,  and  then  immediately  the  most 
characteristic  of  these  details. 

"The  end  of  autumn,  and  some  rooks 
Are  perched  upon  a  withered  branch." 

"Aye  I    New  Year's  day,  with  a  clear  sky, 
And  conversation  among  the  sparrows  I" 

These  little  utterances — Hokku  they  are  called 
— consisting  of  seventeen  syllables  arranged  in 
lines  of  five,  seven,  and  then  five,  are  the  char-- 
acteristic  poetry  of  Japan.  They  are  without 
rhyme  or  reason — ^just  each  a  single  act  of  poetic 
choice  or  comparison,  to  stand  or  fall  by  its  own 
merits.  And  in  most  of  them  apparently  the  act 
of  choice  is  accomplished,  as  in  the  examples 
above,  by  placing  a  general  term  first  and  then 
the  specific  details  in  co-ordination. 


68  ENJOYTVIENT  OF  POETRY 

The  general  term  does  not  always  stand  in  the 
body  of  the  work,  but  may  appear  as  a  title. 
The  following  little  motion-picture  is  the  winning 
poem  from  a  public  competition  in  which  the 
general  term  was  proposed  by  the  arbiter.  I 
quote  from  an  English  critic: 

"The  subject  has  been  a  'Spring  Breeze/  and 
to  imderstand  the  significance  of  the  verse  we 
must  remember  that  in  Japan  carpenters  plane 
their  wood  in  the  open  air,  and  that  the  curhng 
wood-sha\ing  is  the  exact  shape  of  the  Japanese 
letter 'no.'    Here  is  the  poem: 

'"As  I  walked  past  the  carpenter's,  the  no-letters  chased 
me  down  the  lane.'" 

Sometimes,  however,  the  realization  is  all  con- 
veyed in  a  simple  declarative  sentence  as  though 
it  were  information,  and  in  these  cases — as  in  our 
own  poems,  where  the  impulse  to  reaUze  is  hardly 
ever  isolated — ^it  b  a  little  more  difficult  to  trace 
the  poetic  act.  Here  the  chief  detail  of  what  we 
might  call  a  "sea-picture"  appears  as  a  soHtary 
statement  of  fact: 

"There,  by  the  crescent  moon,  the  shark 
Has  hid  his  head  beneath  the  wave." 

More  often  the  chosen  detail  is  subordinated 
still  further,  and  appears  as  an  adjective,  or  ad- 


CHOICE  AND  COMPARISON        69 

verb,  or  phrase,  or  clause,  modifying  the  gen- 
eral term. 

"Without  a  word  of  warning,  there 
In  th'  autumn  sky,  Mount  Fuji  stands." 

"How  carefully  begin  to  bud 
In  winter  the  cameUia-trees." 

These  are  rather  serene  and  quiet  pictures, 
where  the  name  of  the  detail  is  subsequent  and 
subordinate  to  the  name  of  the  thing.  But  as 
the  poetic  impulse  grows  intense  the  detail  is 
more  and  more  elevated,  and  the  general  term 
sinks  into  subordination,  or  if  it  can  be  somehow 
understood,  it  disappears  altogether. 

This  is  the  tiny  threnody  of  a  Japanese  mother, 
Chiyo,  at  the  loss  of  her  child: 

"Where  may  he  have  gone  off  to^iay,— 
My  dragon-fly  hunter?" 

She  does  not  say,  as  the  others  would: 

"My  boy  who  used  to  chase  dragon-flies." 

No,  she  makes  the  detail,  the  dragon-fly  chasing, 
he  the  boy.    That  is  the  intenser  art. 

Here,  in  a  different  vein,  is  even  a  more  incisive 
etching: 

"A  show'r  in  spring,  where  an  umbrella 
And  rail-coat  walk  along  conversing." 


70  ENJOYMENT  OF  POETRY 

In  this  poem  the  detail  of  two  covered  peopk 
walking  down  the  street  together  is  chosen  from 
the  general  aspect  of  the  shower,  and  placed  in  a 
subordinate  phrase;  but  afterward,  within  that 
detail,  a  more  exquisite  choice  is  made,  and  it  is 
made  sharply.  There  is  no  mention  of  the  people 
at  all,  just  those  two  parts  of  therrij  the  rain-coat 
and  the  umbrella,  walk  along  conversing!  Such 
effects  are  produced  by  a  man  who  is  not  afraid 
to  let  the  poetic  impulse  dominate  him,  making 
his  logical  import  ridiculous.   ' 

**They  have  slain  the  servants  with  the  edge  of  the  sword." 

**There  came  a  great  wind  from  the  wilderness,  and  smote 
the  four  comers  of  the  house." 

That  is  how  choice  utters  itself  when  realiza- 
tion is  intense.  And  almost  throughout  our 
English  Bible  it  is  intense.  Poetry  exists  there 
in  the  old  stories  and  songs,  poetry  of  the  very 
strongest,  without  metre,  without  metaphor,  and 
even  where  the  translator  has  lost  all  rhythm  of 
speech.  It  exists  in  the  choice  of  practically  su- 
perfluous but  poignant  details,  which  irresistibly 
invade  the  mind. 

"Woe  unto  them  that  devise  iniquity. 
And  plot  evil  upon  their  beds." 

"Bring  out  the  prisoner  from  the  dungeon, 
And  them  that  sit  in  darkness  from  the  prison-house." 


CHOICE  AND  COMPARISON        71 

That  parallelism  of  phrases,  which  is  the  struct- 
ural feature  of  Hebrew  verse,  lets  appear  the 
true  motive  of  poetry  almost  as  nakedly  as  the 
Japanese  Hokku.  With  them  the  whole  poem 
is  mere  realization;  with  the  Hebrews  there  is  a 
practical  intent,  there  is  discourse,  but  that  in- 
tent being  more  than  fulfilled  in  the  first  line,  the 
second,  or  the  second  two,  are  pure  realization 
of  the  subject  discoursed  of.  And  in  them  there- 
fore this  almost  fanatical  specification  of  the 
minute  detail. 

"I  will  not  suffer  mine  eyes  to  sleep. 
Nor  mine  eyelids  to  slumber." 

**Let  not  them  that  are  mine  enemies  wrongfully  rejoice 
over  me: 
Neither  let  them  vnnk  with  the  eye  that  hate  me  without 
a  cause." 

"He  heard  my  voice  out  of  his  temple; 
And  my  cry  before  him  came  into  his  ears" 

"All  they  that  see  me  laugh  me  to  scorn: 
They  shoot  out  the  lip " 

It  is  not  really  a  long  step  from  this  flaming 
poetry  to  the  modern  utterances  of  Walt  Whit- 
man, a  mystic  too,  forever  hinting  at  something 
behind,  or  beyond,  and  yet  in  the  depth  of  his 
soul  loving  the  inevitable  and  temporal  qualities 
of  things  here. 


72  ENJOYjVIENT  OF  POETRY 

There  is  no  better  place  to  learn  the  difference 
between  poetry  and  practical  language  than  in 
his  book,  which  is  a  grand  mixture  of  the  two. 
Take  those  lines  beginning  "WTiat  do  you  see, 
Walt  Whitman?" — you  can  mark  off  whole  blocks 
of  them  in  which,  being  entirely  satisfied  with  his 
own  vision  and  himself,  he  makes  no  effort  to  let 
the  reader  see,  he  merely  names  things  with  their 
practical  names.  And  then  you  can  choose  other 
lines  and  passages  of  supreme  poetry,  passages 
in  which,  as  he  himself  says,  he  builds  not  with 
words  but  with  materials: 

"He  puts  things  in  their  attitudes, 
He  puts  to-day  out  of  himself  with  plasticity  and  love." 

Compare  the  two  follo\^ing  sets  of  lines  and  you 
will  feel  this  difference.  You  will  feel  the  differ- 
ence between  words  and  things. 

a) 

**I   see  plainly  the  Himalayas,   Chian  Shahs,  Altays, 
Ghauts." 

**I  see  the  Brazilian  vaquero; 
I  see  the  Bolivian  ascending  Moimt  Sorata." 

"You  Japanese  man  or  woman  I    You  liver  in  Madagas- 
car, Ceylon,  Sumatra,  Borneo  1 
All  you  continentals  of  Asia,  Africa,  Europe,  Australia, 
indifferent  of  place  I" 


CHOICE  AND  COMPARISON        73 

(2) 
"I  see  a  great  round  wonder  rolling  through  the  air; 

I  see  the  shaded  part  on  one  side,  where  the  sleepers  are 

sleeping — and  the  sunlit  part  on  the  other  side, 
I  see  the  curious  silent  change  of  the  light  and  shade." 

"I  see  the  battle-fields  of  the  earth — grass  grows  upon 
them,  and  blossoms  and  corn." 

"I  see  the  place  of  the  innocent  rich  life  and  hapless  fate 
of  the  beautiful  nocturnal  son,  the  full-limb'd 
Bacchus." 

"You  beautiful-bodied  Persian,  at  full  speed  in  the  saddle, 
shooting  arrows  to  the  mark  I" 

"You  Austral  negro,  naked,  red,  sooty,  with  protrusive 
Hp,  grovelling,  seeking  your  food  I" 

"You  thoughtful  Armenian,  pondering  by  some  stream  of 
the  Euphrates  I  you  peering  amid  the  ruins  of 
Nineveh  I" 

**You  Hottentot  with  clicking  palate  I    You  woolly-hair*d 

hordes  1 
You  own'd  persons  dropping  sweat-drops  or  blood-drops  I 
You  human  forms  with  the  fathomless  ever-impressive 

countenances  of  brutes  I" 

One  reason  why  Walt  Whitman,  having  this 
gift  of  conveying  realizations  to  the  very  highest, 
mixed  them  with  so  much  dead  stuff,  is  that  he 
wanted  his  poetry  to  be  Hke  the  world,  to  "tally 
nature,"  as  he  says,  and  have  passages  not  beau- 


74  ENJOYMENT  OF  POETRY 

tiful  nor  conventionally  poetic.  But  this  ambi- 
tion might  have  been  satisfied  by  introducing  in 
vivid  reality  things  which  are  not  usually  intro- 
duced. It  does  not  demand  that  things  should 
be  introduced  without  vivid  reality.  There  are 
no  abstract  passages  in  nature.  There  are  no 
catalogues  of  common  names.  Nature  does  not 
exist  in  classes — blacksmiths,  carpenters,  oil- 
works,  white-lead  works — but  exists  in  the  smoke 
and  sweat  of  individual  specimens.  Nature  does 
not  signify  by  names  but  by  qualities.  And 
when,  like  her,  the  poet  enlivens  with  an  act  of 
choice  a  certain  member  of  his  tedious  proces- 
sions, no  matter  what  member  it  is,  we  are  glad, 
and  loath  to  depart  from  it.  The  energy  of  such 
a  phrase  is  contagious,  and  for  a  little  way  on 
both  sides  of  it  the  procession  moves. 

"I  see  the  camel,  the  wild  steed,  the  bustard,  the  fat-tail'd 
sheep,  the  antelope,  and  the  burrowing  wolf." 

Observe  how  that  "fat-tail'd"  sheep  emerges, 
gives  you  a  sensation,  and  then  lends  a  bit  of  his 
vitality  to  the  whole  parade.  Leave  that  out 
and  there  is  no  parade,  it  is  merely  a  list.  But 
as  it  is,  the  camel  and  the  wild  steed  both  prick 
up  their  ears  to  see  that  fattail  coming,  and  there 
is  a  real  poetic  quality  in  the  whole  line. 

Turn  from  this  poem,  in  which  as  in  so  much 


CHOICE  AND  COMPARISON         75 

of  his  writing  Whitman  lacks  abandon,  there  is 
too  much  of  the  conscious  pulpiteer — turn  from 
it  to  those  poems  in  which  he  forgets.  The  psalm 
in  realization  of  the  death  of  Abraham  Lincoln, 
the  "Song  of  the  Open  Road,"  "  Crossing  Brook- 
lyn Ferry,"  "Out  of  the  Cradle  Endlessly  Rock- 
ing"— there  where  the  poet  loses  himself  in  the 
things  he  names,  the  poetry  is  not  failing.  It 
is  sustained,  and  moreover  it  is  perfectly  simple. 

"Mighty  Manhattan,  with  spires,  and  the  sparkling  and 
hurrying  tides,  and  the  ships " 

"The  most  excellent  sun,  so  calm  and  haughty " 

"The  high-spread  sky " 

"The  huge  and  thoughtful  night " 

"The  fragrant  cedars  and  the  ghostly  pines  so  still ** 


These  are  all  seen  in  the  sorrow  of  his  great 
poem,  just  as  in  life  a  child  first  sees  them,  vividly 
and  wonderfully. 

"Day  come  white  or  night  come  black " 

is  but  the  poet's,  and  the  child's,  way  of  saying 
"  day  or  night."  It  is  the  act  of  poetic  choice  at 
its  simplest,  the  salient  quality  being  merely  the 
most  obvious  of  all — ^too  obvious  to  be  named 
anywhere  but  in  the  language  of  genius. 

"Lithe  and  silent  the  Hindu  appears." 


76  ENJOYMENT  OF  POETRY 

"The  friendly  and  flowing  savage." 
"The  sagging  moon." 
"Immense  and  silent  moon." 
"Over  the  hoarse  sm-ging  of  the  sea." 

In  these  the  choice  of  a  quality  is  more  subtle, 
and  in  the  last  one  more  emphasized  also,  for  the 
quality  begins  to  be  elevated  above  the  thing 
again.  It  is  not,  "Over  the  sea  with  its  hoarse 
surge/'  but 

"Over  the  hoarse  surging." 

And  he  might  have  omitted  the  sea  altogether, 
as  in  this  line  he  has  omitted  the  flying: 

"And  every  day  the  he-bird  to-and-fro." 

These  highest  degrees  of  the  act  of  poetic  choice, 
letting  the  attribute  or  part  supplant  entirely  the 
customary  name  of  the  thing,  have  received  from 
scholars  some  long  names — metonymy  and  synec- 
doche— and  have  been  classified  by  them  in  total 
separation  from  the  poetic  use  of  adjectives  and 
adverbs  and  co-ordinate  expressions.  They  have 
been  called  "figures  of  speech."  And  a  figure  of 
speech  is  defined  as  an  indirect  way  of  naming 
things. 

"Spring  Shower — an  umbrella  and  rain-coat  walk  along 
conversing." 


CHOICE  AND  COMPARISON        77 

That  is  metonymy.    Tell  yourself  that  it  is  an 
"indirect"  way  of  naming  things. 

"They  have  slain  the  servants  with  the  edge  of  the  sword." 

That  is  synecdoche,  also  an  "indirect"  way  of 
speaking. 

The  treatment  in  rhetorical  theory  of  figures 
of  speech,  appears  to  be  one  of  the  greatest  blun- 
ders that  an  over-spectacled  scholarship  ever  ob- 
truded upon  the  world.  It  is  due,  I  believe,  to 
the  fact  that  all  discourse  was  assumed  by  Aris- 
totle's scholastic  successors  to  be  practical  in  its 
primary  intent;  and  from  the  stand-point  of  a 
practical  intent  it  is  indirect  to  say  an  umbrella 
when  your  logical  subject  is  a  man.  From  the 
stand-point  of  a  poetic  intent,  however,  an  intent 
to  put  a  man  before  the  eyes  umbrella-foremost,  it 
is  supremely  direct.  It  excels  exactly  in  direct- 
ness the  use  of  modifiers. 

Yet  that  ancient  classification  and  definition, 
important  or  at  least  interesting  to  one  who 
studies  the  mechanics  of  connected  speech,  but 
of  the  least  possible  significance  in  the  psychology 
of  poetic  inspiration  or  appreciation,  is  still  forced 
upon  the  novice  as  one  of  the  keys  to  the  enjoy- 
ment of  poetry.  He  must  learn  how  lovely  it 
is  to  be  indirect,  and  when  you  set  out  to  go  some- 
where, instead  of  going  there,  to  back  up  and 


78  ENJOYMENT  OF  POETRY 

turn  round  and  go  somewhere  else.  This  is  so 
difficult  for  a  plain  man  to  learn  that  I  think  we 
may  set  it  down  as  the  chief  academic  obstacle  to 
the  enjojTnent  of  imaginative  literature.  "Fig- 
ures of  speech" — "metonymy,"  "synecdoche," 
and  other  long-tailed  monsters — are  what  bar  the 
entrance  of  a  simple  human  into  the  realm  of 
poetry. 

The  reason  for  mentioning  only  two  at  this 
point  is  that  we  have  now  arrived  at  a  suitable 
place  to  forget  these  two.  It  ought  to  be  possible 
to  obliterate  them  entirely  from  the  mind,  mak- 
ing room  in  their  place  for  the  simple  truth  that 
if  a  speaker's  impulse  is  poetic,  words  that  sug- 
gest salient  parts  or  qualities  of  the  things  he 
mentions  will  stand  out  over  the  general  names  of 
the  things.  It  is  because  he  seeks  to  attain  and 
convey  to  us  a  sense  of  the  actual  existence  of 
those  things.  And  for  us  things  actually  exist 
always  with  some  part  or  quahty  thus  predomi- 
nant. 

Some  who  have  felt  the  poetry  of  the  phrases 
we  quoted,  will  think  that  it  lies  rather  in  the 
choice  of  words  than  in  the  choice  of  qualities. 
We  might  state,  for  instance,  that  the  moon  is 
"near  the  horizon  and  convex  at  the  bottom"  in- 
stead of  "sagging,"  that  the  savage  "glides  with 
a    continuous  grace  of  movement,"  instead  of 


CHOICE  AND  COMPARISON        79 

"flowing,"  and,  while  indicating  the  same  qualities 
that  the  poet  did,  we  should  not  convey  the  same 
realization.  And  that  is  entirely  true,  and  it  is 
due  to  the  fact  that  the  act  of  choice  is  altogether 
inseparable  from  the  act  of  comparison.  And 
every  word  which  comes  forth  to  name  an  expe- 
rience in  the  present,  comes  forth  out  of  a  past  in 
which  it  has  been  the  name  of  other  experiences. 
And  these  it  cannot  forget.  "Convex"  com- 
pares the  moon  to  what? — to  lenses,  to  spec- 
tacles, to  circles  of  paper.  What  does  it  re- 
member? It  remembers  the  school-room  and  the 
laboratory.  And  what  have  they,  the  school- 
room and  laboratory,  that  they  can  bring  as  an 
offering  to  the  pure  perception  of  the  moon  late- 
risen  upon  a  sorrowful  evening?  No,  they  are 
to  be  shunned  earnestly,  and  that  is  why  it  ap- 
pears that  realization  depends  as  much  upon  the 
choice  of  words  as  of  qualities.  It  depends  upon 
the  comparison  of  things,  and  words  are  the 
bearers  of  comparison. 
Suppose  that  we  say, 

"Day  come  light,  or  night  come  dark," 

then  we  have  nearly  eliminated  comparison,  for 
dark  is  a  word  that  only  remembers  other  nights, 
and  lighi  remembers  other  days.  Therefore,  while 
these  words,  by  their  very  superfluity,  bear  wit- 


80  ENJOYMENT  OF  POETRY 

ness  to  the  poetic  impulse,  the  poetry  that  they 
generate  is  very  watery  indeed.  But  "black" 
and  "white"  have  other  memories,  and  much 
incipient  or  potential  comparison  will  therefore 
enrich  that  day  or  night  in  which  they  choose  the 
quahty. 

"The  flowing  savage"  is  a  name  which  con- 
tains choice  and  comparison  in  high  equiHbrium. 
To  one  who  already  knew  and  loved  the  fluid 
motion  of  an  Indian's  body,  it  would  be  difficult 
to  say  which  is  the  more  perfect,  the  instinct  that 
caught  it,  or  the  art  that  could  just  intimate 
rivers,  melodies — its  true  companions. 

Every  line  of  poetry  is  pregnant  with  such  la- 
tent comparisons;  it  is  a  kind  of  menace.  And, 
just  as  with  rapture  the  act  of  choice  overtops 
the  meaning,  and  the  customary  name  is  omitted, 
so  also  with  rapture  the  act  of  comparison.  The 
menace  is  fulfilled.  Out  of  that  imminence  of 
vague  memories  suddenly  shoots  down  into  your 
very  speech  a  concrete  reality,  and  you  utter,  not 
the  name  of  your  logical  subject,  but  the  name 
of  this  other  that  is  similar. 

"The  white  arms  out  in  the  breakers  tirdessly  tossing." 

"^th    angry  moans    the  fierce  old  Tnother  incessantly 
moaning." 

"I  will  toss  the  new  gladness  and  roughness  among  them." 


CHOICE  AND  COMPARISON        81 

Let  this  third  example  remind  us  that  all  we 
have  said  applies  to  verbs  and  adverbs,  as  well 
as  to  nouns  and  adjectives.  "I  will  generate  with 
words,  will  stimulate  hy  my  presence,  a  new  glad- 
ness and  roughness,"  would  be  a  more  practical 
expression,  but  toss  comes  forward  inevitably  and 
the  sentence  lives. 

When  comparison  becomes  as  overt  as  this,  it 
too  is  seized  upon  by  the  rhetoricians,  cut  off  from 
the  use  of  poetic  modifiers  or  co-ordinate  expres- 
sions, and  called  "  metaphor."  I  am  not  sure  but 
the  flowing  savage  contains  a  comparison  sufficiently 
manifest  to  fall  under  this  misfortune.  It  might 
be  called  a  "trope,"  or  some  other  word  to  sig- 
nify a  shunting  off,  or  blockage,  of  the  general 
course  of  business.  But  I  am  sure  that  no  essen- 
tial difference  for  poetry  exists  between  its  use 
and  the  use  of  any  rich  adjective,  such  as  "lithe," 
or,  upon  the  other  hand,  the  use  of  two  names  and 
a  particle,  or  copula,  to  express  the  comparison 
between  them — "The  savage  who  moves  like  a 
stream." 

Say  that  a  creature  is  pale — ^you  have  some 
comparison  with  other  pale  things.  Say  that  he 
is  ghastly,  the  other  things  emerge  nearer;  ghostly, 
still  nearer;  ghost-like,  ghost-pale,  they  are  im- 
minent; and  pale  as  the  ghosts  of  the  dead,  they 
are  upon  you. 


82  ENJOYIMENT  OF  POETRY 

This  is  an  essentially  homogeneous  hst.  But 
every  rhetorician  will  make  two  abrupt  di\'isions 
in  it.  Pale  and  ghastly  he  will  let  go  as  "direct," 
"normal,"  "hteral"  names.  At  ghostly  he  will 
make  a  great  leap  over  nothing,  and  call  it  a 
"metaphor";  at  ghost-like  another  leap,  and  call 
it  a  "simile."  Moreover,  if  you  say,  "This  creat- 
ure is  like  a  ghost,"  he  will  call  it  simile;  but  if 
you  say,  "He  is  a  mere  ghost,"  it  is  metaphor. 
These  distinctions,  which  have  to  do  with  the 
small  points  of  sentence  structure,  being  pushed 
forward  as  something  to  watch  for  in  poetry, 
greatly  obstruct  the  natural  love  of  it,  and  more- 
over occupy  the  place  of  a  distinction  which 
would  really  further  its  appreciation. 

For  there  are,  in  the  hterature  of  realization, 
two  ver}^  different  kinds  of  comparison.  There 
are  illuminating,  or  intensifying,  comparisons, 
where  the  things  recalled  only  shed  a  light  of 
strong  reality  upon  the  subject  of  discourse. 
Such  are  the  metaphors  we  have  been  considering, 
and  also  both  the  similes  and  metaphors  in  the 
following  lines: 

"The  words  of  his  mouth  were  smoother  than  butter. 
But  war  was  in  his  heart; 
His  words  were  softer  than  oil. 
Yet  were  they  drawn  swords." 

"There  is  no  faithfulness  in  their  mouth; 
Their  throat  is  an  open  sepulchre ** 


CHOICE  AND  COMPARISON        83 

"But  I  am  a  worm,  and  no  man ** 

**  Rottenness  entereth  into  my  bones." 

"My  heart  is  like  wax;  it  is  melted  in  the  midst  of  my 
bowels " 

"I  am  poured  out  like  water " 

On  the  other  hand,  there  are  comparisons  in 
which  the  poetic  impulse  runs  out  into  the  things 
recalled,  and  you  have  a  little  excursion  of  reali- 
zation away  from  the  subject  of  discourse.  And 
these  we  may  call  discursive  or  holiday  compari- 
sons, since  they  are  so  happily  defiant  of  practical 
progress.  They  occur  most  frequently  in  the 
childhood  of  literature. 

"The  Lord  is  my  shepherd; 
I  shall  not  want. 

He  maketh  me  to  lie  down  in  green  pastures: 
He  leadeth  me  beside  the  still  waters. 
He  restoreth  my  soul " 

"As  for  man,  his  days  are  as  grass: 
As  a  flower  of  the  field,  so  he  flourisheth. 
For  the  wind  passeth  over  it,  and  it  is  gone; 
And  the  place  thereof  shall  know  it  no  Tnore" 

Here  for  a  moment  man  is  quite  forgotten  in 
the  tragedy  of  that  little  flower;  and  before,  I 
think,  the  Lord  was  almost  forgotten  in  a  pastoral 
idyl. 

Such  wandering  in  a  simile  from  the  original 


84  ENJOYIVIENT  OF  POETRY 

subject,  while  yet  the  original  subject  sustains 
and  dignifies  your  enjoyment,  is  a  special  expe- 
rience. It  is  poetically  different  from  the  purely 
illuminative  use  of  comparison,  because  the  reali- 
zation lies  for  a  moment  in  a  new  direction. 
Therefore  the  distinction  of  these  two — although 
far  less  precise  than  the  ones  that  the  rhetorics 
draw — is  of  true  importance  to  us. 

"Allegory"  and  "fable"  and  "parable,"  and 
what  has  been  called  in  Hebrew  Hterature  "direct 
metaphor,"  are  poetry  of  this  kind.  "Direct 
metaphor"  is  simply  an  allegory  with  no  overt 
transfer  of  names,  no  explanation  of  its  symbol- 
ism. It  is  not  more  direct  than  other  metaphors, 
but  it  is  more  extended.  One  occurs  in  Eccle- 
siastes  beginning: 

"Remember  now  thy  Creator  in  the  days  of  thy 
youth " 

from  which  it  has  taxed  the  generations  to  ex- 
tract the  proper  meaning.  The  same  kind  of 
metaphor  occiu^  in  the  poetry  of  primitive 
people,  and  the  same  difficulty  arises  when  we 
try  to  enjoy,  or  even  to  perceive,  the  comparisons 
in  this  poetry.  We  do  not  understand  its  meta- 
phors, and  even  after  they  are  explained  we  can- 
not feel  their  appropriateness,  because  the  objects 
named  have  so  different  a  flavor  to  our  affections 


CHOICE  AND  COMPARISON        85 

from  what  they  had  to  those  who  named  them. 
This  is  a  "Song  of  the  Spirit  Dance"  among  the 
Arapaho  Indians: 

"Wading  passed  I  through 

Yellow  waters, 
Wading  passed  I  through 

Yellow  waters, 
Ah,  'twas  e'en,  e'en  the  turtle  lake — 

Yellow  waters — 
Ah,  'twas  e'en,  e'en  the  turtle  lake — 

Yellow  waters." 

Dante  has  often  this  primitive  quality.  Allegory 
and  extended  metaphor  are  so  natural  to  his  mind 
that  all  his  language,  even  in  a  prose  translation, 
has  a  strange  sound  to  us.  He  seems,  almost 
like  a  bashful  person,  to  shrink  from  naming 
the  real  subject  of  discourse,  always  intimating 
or  indicating  what  it  is  by  dwelling  with  a  grave 
expression  upon  something  else. 

Now  all  these  formal  uses  of  comparison,  being 
poetically  different  both  in  motive  and  effect, 
ought  to  be  separated  from  the  merely  illumina- 
tive simile  and  metaphor.  Only  they  ought  not 
to  be  separated  from  discursive  simile,  which  is 
the  same  thing  in  a  far  sweeter  and  more  spon- 
taneous form.  The  love  of  what  lies  at  the  other 
side  of  a  comparison  happens  to  carry  us  away, 
and  we  wander  over  there  to  look  for  a  minute, 
before  going  on  with  the  main  poem. 


86  ENJOYIMENT  OF  POETRY 

"He  shall  feed  his  flocks  like  a  shepherd. 
He  shall  gather  the  lambs  in  his  arm, 
And  carry  them  in  his  bosom, 
And  shall  gently  lead  those  that  give  stick" 

Only  from  the  point  of  view  of  practical  dis- 
course, of  the  pure  effort  to  convey  a  meaning, 
can  any  of  this  language  be  called  indirect,  or 
out  of  the  simple  and  natural.  The  moment  the 
poetic  impulse  is  acknowledged,  and  to  the  ex- 
tent that  it  is  acknowledged,  any  true  comparison 
appears  entirely  direct  and  primitive.  See  it,  as 
we  saw  poetic  choice,  in  the  second  member  of  a 
parallelism,  where  the  meaning  is  already  satisfied: 

"Whose  confidence  shall  break  asunder. 
And  whose  trust  is  a  spider's  web." 

Or  see  it  in  those  verses  from  the  Japanese, 
which  have  no  practical  motive,  but  are  the 
atoms  of  poetry: 

"FalPn  flower  returning  to  the  branch, — 
Behold  I  it  is  a  butterfly. " 

See  it  thus,  and  that  sense  of  anything  indirect, 
anj^lhing  "turning  aside,'*  in  poetic  comparison, 
is  impossible.  Still  more  impossible  if  we  look 
again  to  the  very  origins  of  formal  poetry. 

"Beautiful,  lo,  the  summer  clouds. 
Beautiful,  lo,  the  summer  clouds. 
Blossoming  clouds  in  the  sky 
Like  unto  shimmering  flowers " 


CHOICE  AND  COMPARISON         87 

is  the  substance  of  a  dance  song  among  the  Zuni 
Indians.    And  this  is  a  Hopi  lullaby: 

"Puva,  puva,  puva/ 
In  the  trail  the  beetles 
On  each  other's  backs  are  sleeping, 
So  on  mine,  my  baby,  thou 
Puva,  puva,  puva." 

Sometimes  in  our  own  literature  this  sense  of  a 
whole  poem  as  pure  poetry  is  conveyed  through 
a  device  called  apostrophe.  And  apostrophe,  by 
the  irony  of  rhetoric,  means  "turning  away." 
It  is  turning  away  from  the  progress  of  your 
argument  in  order  to  realize  something  you  have 
mentioned.  But  happily  in  certain  cases  there 
is  no  argument,  and  there  has  been  none,  and  so 
there  can  be  no  turning  away,  but  the  whole  poem 
is  a  pure  turning  toward.  An  example  from 
William  Blake  is  appropriate  here,  because,  like 
the  other  poems  we  have  referred  to,  it  makes  its 
appeal  almost  without  the  help  of  metrical  music; 
it  is  poetry  through  the  perfection  of  poignant 
choice  and  comparison. 

"TO  THE   EVENING  STAR 

"Thou  fair-haired  Angel  of  the  Evening, 
Now  whilst  the  sun  rests  on  the  mountains,  light 
Thy  bright  torch  of  love — thy  radiant  crown 
Put  on,  and  smile  upon  our  evening  bed  I 

1  "Puva"  is  a  verb  meaning  sleep. 


88  ENJOYMENT  OF  POETRY 

Smile  on  our  loves;  and  while  thou  drawest  the 

Blue  curtains  of  the  sky,  scatter  thy  silver  dew 

On  every  flower  that  shuts  its  sweet  eyes 

In  timely  sleep.     Let  thy  west  wind  sleep  on 

The  lake;  speak  silence  with  thy  glimmering  eyes 

And  wash  the  dusk  with  silver. — Soon,  full  soon. 

Dost  thou  withdraw;  then  the  wolf  rages  wide. 

And  the  lion  glares  through  the  dun  forest. 

The  fleeces  of  our  flocks  are  covered  with 

Thy  sacred  dew;  protect  them  with  thine  influence  I" 

It  will  not  appear,  in  this  wrought  harmony  of 
realizations,  so  easy  a  thing  to  choose  and  com- 
pare poetically,  as  it  may  have  appeared  in  the 
analysis.  It  is  not  a  thing  that  every  one  can  do 
well.  The  qualities  that  it  requires  are  three, 
and  they  are  three  that  rarely  lodge  in  the  same 
mind — sensitiveness,  and  self-knowledge,  and 
sympathy.  For  the  poet  must  receive  the  being 
of  things  with  his  whole  nature,  and  yet  he  must 
know  the  motions  of  his  mind  in  receiving  them, 
and  he  must  know  the  motions  of  all  minds,  lest 
his  poetry  be  private  and  inconmiunicable. 


CHAPTER  VII 
WINE  AND  SLEEP  AND  POETRY 

The  joy  of  drunkenness  to  an  Anglo-Saxon  is 
that  it  gives  lustre  to  his  trivial  experiences.  He 
gets  adventure  without  doing  much.  Having 
lulled  with  the  narcotic  those  hereditary  inhibi- 
tions which  made  him  appear  phlegmatic,  he  can 
come  into  that  state  of  receptive  exaltation  which 
is  native  to  the  wine-souled  Italian.  Liberated 
from  the  tyranny  of  his  own  opinions,  liberated 
from  his  self-esteem,  his  diflBdence,  or  prudence,  or 
good  judgment,  he  is  now  able  to  taste  life.  And 
it  was  really  for  this  same  virtue  that  wine  was 
anciently  praised,  for  this  purpose  it  was  used — • 
to  heighten  the  flush  of  experience,  and  make  one 
return,  as  Plato  said,  "into  the  state  of  soul  in 
which  he  was  when  a  young  child.** 

The  revels  of  Dionysus — perfections  in  the 
memory  of  some  rural  harvest  carnival — reveal, 
through  a  glamour  of  mysticism,  just  this  extrem- 
ity of  enthusiasm  for  the  flavor  of  the  world. 
Wild  youths,  and  creatures  with  youth  in  them — 
satyrs,  and  fauns,  and  msenads,  the  lynx,  the 
goat,  the  dolphin — a  laughter  of  Bacchus  falling 
upon  them,  hale  each  other  forth  with  roses  and 


90  ENJOYMENT  OF  POETRY 

ivy-crowns  and  vine-leaves  trailing,  snakes  and 
torches  and  flutes  and  hallelujahs,  to  celebrate  a 
fervent  progress  through  the  world.  A  triumph 
after  no  achievement,  and  a  conscription  leading 
to  no  deeds;  a  festive  and  terriflc  celebration  of 
being. 

Over  the  light  blue  hills 
There  came  a  noise  of  revellers:  the  rills 
Into  the  wide  stream  came  of  purple  hue — 

'Twas  Bacchus  and  his  crew  I 
The  earnest  trumpet  spake,  and  silver  thrills 
From  kissing  cymbals  made  a  merry  din — 

'Twas  Bacchus  and  his  kin 
Like  to  a  moving  vintage  down  they  came, 
Crown'd  with  green  leaves,  and  faces  all  on  flame; 
All  madly  dancing  through  the  pleasant  valley  .  .** 

Akin  to  the  spirituous  insanity  of  these  joyful 
creatures,  is  a  certain  mood  of  the  imagination 
in  somnolescence,  or  midnight  waking.  Do  there 
not  sometimes,  as  you  fall  asleep,  come  swimming 
before  your  eyes  in  vivid  portraiture,  shapes  and 
scenes  and  faces,  grotesque  or  beautiful,  but  of 
such  speaking  realness  that  they  make  you  move? 
Or  do  you  ever  wake  at  midnight  to  find  your 
soul  naked  to  the  touch  of  the  world?  Little 
things  that  you  care  for,  yesterday's,  or  to-mor- 
row's, or  a  Hfetime's — they  are  too  real.  Some- 
times the  trees  stand  out  this  way  before  a  storm. 
Each  being  is  as  though  it  had  non-being  for  a 


WINE  AND  SLEEP  AND  POETRY  91 

background.  In  these  hours  none  too  sober,  I 
think  we  are  not  far  from  the  well-springs  of 
poetry.  Activity  has  ceased  and  the  senses  sleep, 
but  there  is  energy  of  perception  under  the  eye- 
lids, and  the  world  re-creates  itself  with  fervor 
there. 

Neither  dreams  nor  the  complete  illusions  of 
hypnosis,  but  just  on  the  moonlight  verge  of  them 
— the  wakeful  lethargy  in  which  a  creak  of  the 
floor  seems  an  earthquake,  and  things  with  the 
special  values  of  unreaKty  acquire  all  the  vividness 
of  the  real — this  is  the  condition  in  which  imagi- 
native realization  can  vie  in  its  intensity  with  the 
sensuous  experience  of  a  BacchanaHan.  This  is 
the  condition  into  which  the  poet  must  bring  us. 
He  must  lull  us  into  our  exaltation.  And  for  this 
purpose,  like  a  mother  to  her  child  in  the  night, 
he  brings  music.  He  cradles  us  in  rhythm  and 
soothes  us  with  a  perpetual  and  half-monotonous 
melody. 

Music  is  wine  to  the  imagination.  And  the  es- 
sence of  music,  originally  and  in  this  respect,  is 
rhythm,  or  the  regular  recurrence  of  a  pleasant 
stroke.  The  trance-engendering  power  of  such 
recurrence,  however  it  may  be  explained,  was  an- 
ciently known  and  is  easily  verified.  Patting  and 
stroking  are  nature's  anodynes.  We  rock  our 
babies  to  sleep,  we  smooth  the  foreheads  of  the 


92  ENJOYMENT  OF  POETRY 

fretful,  and  we  love  to  slide  into  oblivion  ourselves, 
carrying  with  us  the  continual  tirl  of  rain-drops 
on  a  roof,  or  beneath  us  in  the  darkness  the  mur- 
mur of  a  brook.  Bernheim,  the  great  scientific 
magician,  hypnotized  his  patients  usually  by  mut- 
tering "sleep — sleep — sleep,"  and  stroking  them 
with  his  hand;  then,  without  altering  the  cadence 
of  his  voice,  he  could  introduce  imaginations  into 
their  minds,  and  make  them  realize  vividly  the 
presence  of  things  even  while  they  knew  them  to 
be  illusory.  This  is  an  experiment  which  almost 
any  two  people  may  try,  and  in  a  few  moments 
they  will  feel  an  original  connection  between 
rhythm  and  imaginative  realization. 

There  is,  perhaps,  a  yet  more  original  and  more 
broad  connection  between  rhythm  and  all  reaKza- 
tion.  It  seems  as  if  there  must  be,  because 
rhythm  is  used,  not  only  to  lull  the  body  and  set 
free  the  imagination,  but  also,  like  wine  itself,  to 
excite  the  body  to  the  last  degree  of  the  intensity 
of  real  experience.  These  are  the  two  primitive 
uses  of  the  recurrent  stimulus,  and  somehow  they 
both  survive  in  poetry.  The  very  metrical  mo- 
notony that  drowses  us  becomes,  when  we  are  lost 
to  coarser  things,  a  turbulent  and  stimulating 
stream  along  our  veins.  And  no  theory  will  ever 
adequately  unfold  the  magic  of  such  utterance 
that  does  not  grant  and  reconcile  these  two  effects. 


WINE  AND  SLEEP  AND  POETRY  93 

Until  such  a  theory  is  devised,  and  commands  us 
to  the  contrary,  we  can  please  our  minds  at  least 
with  the  following  analogy: 

Suppose  that  we  figure  the  nervous  current 
which  corresponds  to  consciousness  as  proceeding, 
like  so  many  other  currents  of  nature,  in  waves — 
then  we  do  receive  a  new  apprehension,  if  not  an 
explanation,  of  the  strange  power  over  us  of  suc- 
cessive strokes.  For  to  regulate  a  consciousness 
would  be  to  regulate  waves,  and  how  else  would 
that  be  accomplished  than  by  a  calculated  rhyth- 
mic impetus?  It  seems  to  me  that,  in  the  entire 
lack  of  anything  better  deserving  the  name,  we 
might  almost  call  this  analogy  explanation,  for  it 
describes  in  physical  terms  what  every  one  can 
say  mentally — that  rhythm  seems  to  chime  in 
with  the  very  nature  of  his  state  of  being  and  con- 
trol it.  Such  an  explanation  will  have  this  ad- 
vantage too,  that  it  does  not  demand  an  artificial 
separation  of  emotion  from  sensation,  or  imagina- 
tion from  thought,  but  it  allows  for  the  rhythmic 
elevation  of  all  these  kinds  of  experience.  What- 
ever things  occupy  our  attention — events,  ob- 
jects, tones,  combinations  of  tones,  emotions,  pict- 
ures, images,  ideas — our  consciousness  of  them 
will  be  heightened  by  the  rhythm  as  though  it 
consisted  of  waves.  And  what  is  still  more  to  the 
credit  of  the  analogy,  this  effect  will  be  strong,  if 


94  ENJOY^IEXT  OF  POETRY 

not  strongest,  when  the  rhythm  is  not  perceived 
at  all,  but  the  attention  is  directed  elsewhere. 

Shelley  has  expressed  in  a  fragment,  which  is 
better  information  than  poetry,  a  special  pleasure 
of  his  which  rested  upon  this  fact. 

"How  sweet  it  is  to  sit  and  read  the  tales 
Of  mighty  poets,  and  to  hear  the  while 
Sweet  music,  which,  when  the  attention  fails, 
Fills  the  dim  pause " 

Apparently  he  did  not  guess  the  truth,  that  the 
music  acted  while  his  mind  was  engrossed  even 
more  than  in  the  pauses  of  the  tale.  But  there 
can  be  little  doubt  of  it.  Music  upon  the  inat- 
tentive ear  is  a  most  insidious  stimulant.  Per- 
haps it  is  for  this  that  we  so  often  beat  a 
rh^lhm  with  our  fingers  when  we  think.  At  any 
rate,  to  many  it  is  a  pleasure  not  exactly  "sweet," 
but  better  than  that,  to  have  some  tune  around 
them  when  their  mind  is  steadily  occupied  upon 
anything.  It  need  not  be  the  tales  of  mighty 
poets,  nor  need  the  music  be  better  than  a  hurdy- 
gurdy  at  the  street  comer.  The  eflPect  is  the  same 
— a.  kind  of  high  buoyancy  of  thought,  with  that 
accentuation  of  the  reality  of  thought's  objects. 
And  I  take  it  to  lie,  either  hke  h^^nosis  in  the 
lulling  of  the  body  and  the  prudential  mind,  the 
partial  liberating  of  imagery  from  inhibitions  of 
maturity  and  civihzation,  or,  Hke  the  madness  of 


WINE  AND  SLEEP  AND  POETRY  95 

dancers,  in  a  general  intensification  of  all  experi- 
ence. Some  day  both  these  things,  the  imagina- 
tive suggestibility  and  the  physical  ecstasy,  the 
sleep  and  wine  in  poetry,  may  be  harmonized  to- 
gether in  explanation  by  a  mature  science,  but  at 
present  we  are  free  to  speculate  a  while  among 
them  and  leave  them  undetermined. 

However  it  may  go  with  the  explanation,  there 
is  no  undetermination  of  the  fact  that  rhythm 
promotes  every  realization.  A  great  new  art  of 
these  days  is  the  moving::picture  show,  and  I  have 
yet  to  find  one  in  which  the  reahty  of  the  pictures 
is  not  enhanced  with  the  beating  of  an  old  piano. 
Nobody  notices  the  piano,  nobody  remembers 
what  the  piano  played,  or  how  badly,  but  there  it 
is,  always  keeping  up  a  metre.  And  even  when 
the  motion  films  give  out,  and  there  are  thrown 
on  the  screen  those  old  still  scenes  of  true  love  by 
moonlight,  still  it  pounds  away,  and  the  audience 
melts  to  the  mood  of  credulous  romance.  Their 
voluntary  mind  is  upon  the  canvas,  but  that  music 
slips  all  the  deeper  into  their  being,  and  it  makes 
them  live  the  pictures. 

The  high  and  wide  popularity  of  this  art  both 
makes  plausible  the  rise  of  epics,  and  gives  assur- 
ance of  the  future  of  poetry.  For  poetry  too  is  a 
series  of  pictures  accompanied  by  appropriate 
music.    The  pictures  are  to  the  imagination,  and 


96  ENJOY]\IEXT  OF  POETRY 

not  to  its  eye  only  but  to  its  whole  being;  and  the 
music  is  of  a  more  subtle  volume;  but  other  than 
this  there  is  no  difference.  Ages  ago  we  can  un- 
derstand how  those  with  the  gift  of  seeing  pictures, 
and  the  naming  gift,  availed  themselves  of  the 
dance  ecstasies  of  their  tribe  to  get  voice  and 
ear  for  a  little  \ivid  utterance.  We  can  imagine 
through  centuries  the  gradual  union  of  that  poetic 
emplo}Tnent  of  speech  which  we  have  described 
as  beginning  when  speech  began,  with  the  em- 
plojTnent  of  rhythm  to  intensify  experience  upon 
festal  occasions,  until  a  custom  and  an  art  of  po- 
etry arises,  and  there  are  ballad-singers  singing 
to  the  dance.  Like  speech  itself  into  the  earlier 
darkness  of  the  tribes,  a  poet  steps  into  the  circle 
of  these  dumb  carnivals  and  illumines  them. 
Nor  will  it  be  long  after  that  before  he  begins  to 
gather  his  own  circles,  and  sing  to  his  own  music 
or  his  own  dancing,  telling  in  metrical  and  poetic 
syllables  the  tales  of  the  tribe.  And  the  experi- 
ence of  his  hearers  will  be  purely  imaginary.  It 
will  be  pure  poetry — a  realization  in  the  rhythmic 
trance  of  things  that  are  absent  and  events  that 
are  not  happening. 

That  is  the  origin,  so  far  as  we  know,  of  the 
first  poem,  the  metrical  stor}%  the  ballad,  the  epic. 
And  no  one  who  sees  it  there,  primitive  and  inevi- 
table, and  then  sees  it  again  here  in  our  own  thea- 


WINE  AND  SLEEP  AND  POETRY  97 

tres,  the  same  thing  only  a  little  less  tranced  and 
more  palpable — as  adapted  to  a  people  who  have 
their  sophistication  to  overcome — no  one  who 
sees  it  so,  or  once  so  feels  it  in  his  own  nature,  will 
doubt  that  the  union  of  rhythm  and  the  language 
of  realization  was  great  and  will  be  eternal.^ 


CHAPTER  VIII 
REALIZATION  OF  ACTION 

The  earliest  poems  were  stories,  and  story  poems 
are  ever  the  most  popular.  Perhaps  they  are  pop- 
ular in  spite  of  their  poetry  rather  than  because  of 
it.  For  that  onward  voracity  of  the  will  to  which 
a  narrative  appeals  is  different,  and  is  almost 
always  more  compelling,  than  the  inclination  to 
realize.  So  compelling  is  it  that  often  it  makes  us 
impatient  of  the  delay  and  we  resent  poetry  in  a 
tale  as  much  as  we  should  in  a  book  of  technical 
science.  "It  is  a  good  story,'*  we  say,  "if  you 
skip  the  descriptions."  And  while  this  may  some- 
times indicate  that  the  descriptions  are  mere  in- 
ventory, at  other  times  it  indicates  a  deep  antipa- 
thy between  the  mood  of  anticipation  and  that 
of  realization.  A  narrative  poem  is  an  unstable 
compound,  and  will  generally  fall  out  to  be,  in  the 
reader's  mind,  either  a  good  narrative  or  a  good 
poem,  but  rarely  both. 

On  the  other  hand,  granted  that  the  reader's 
mood  is  poetic,  and  that  he  is  more  eager  to  receive 
an  experience  than  to  find  out  a  result,  it  will  be 
easier  to  convey  to  him  through  language  the  ex- 
perience of  an  action  than  the  experience  of  an 
98 


REALIZATIOxN  OF  ACTION  99 

inactive  thing.  It  is  easier  to  make  a  series  of 
words  vividly  suggest  a  series  of  events,  than  to 
make  them  suggest  a  collocation  of  objects.  "  He 
starts,  he  jumps,  he  runs!"  gives  a  sharper  touch 
to  the  imagination  than  "It  is  red,  white,  and 
blue!"  And  yet  each  is  a  mere  list  of  practical 
names.  I  think  the  reason  for  this  difference  is 
that,  in  the  first  case,  the  words  stand  in  the  same 
relation  to  each  other  as  the  acts  they  name,  they 
succeed  each  other  in  time;  whereas  in  the  sec- 
ond, the  words  succeed  each  other  in  time,  but  the 
qualities  they  name  co-exist  in  space — it  therefore 
requires  a  special  kind  of  word  to  make  us  pause 
and  receive  them  vividly. 

This  similarity  of  the  utterance  of  words  to  the 
forth-striking  of  events  has  given  rise  to  the  cele- 
brated opinion  that  the  only  proper  subject  for 
poetry  is  action.^  But  it  would  be  truer  to  say 
that  the  first  and  easiest  subject  for  poetry  is 
action.  Granted  that  the  poetic  intention  is  un- 
derstood, it  requires  little  technique  of  choice  or 
comparison  to  make  a  succession  of  words  conjure 

*  "If  it  is  true  that  painting  employs  in  its  imitations 
entirely  different  means  or  symbols  from  those  adopted  by 
poetry — i.  c,  the  former  using  forms  and  colors  in  space, 
the  latter,  on  the  other  hand,  articulate  sounds  in  time — 
if  it  is  admitted  that  these  symbols  must  be  in  suitable 
relation  to  the  thing  symbolized,  then  symbols  placed  in 
juxtaposition  can  only  express  subjects  of  which  the  wholes 
or  parts  exist  in  juxtaposition;  and  consecutive  symbola 


100         ENJOYMENT  OF  POETRY 

up  a  succession  of  events.  A  trimmed  narrative 
is  almost  inevitably  poetic. 

"Enoch  walked  with  God:  and  he  was  not;  for  God  took 
him." 

And  when  to  this  natural  ease  of  creating  and  re- 
ceiving the  poetry  of  narrative  we  add  the  fact 
that  unpoetic  readers  can  ignore  its  poetry  and 
eat  up  the  narrative  only,  if  they  wish  to,  we  have 
abundant  explanation  of  the  greater  popularity 
of  the  story  poem. 

Ballad-singing  is  an  art  almost  universally 
pleasure-giving.  But  the  pleasure  in  ballads  di- 
vides itself  very  sharply  into  these  two  kinds:  on 
the  one  hand,  that  of  persons  not  especially  poetic, 
which  may  be  described  as  a  pleasure  in  finding 
their  way  to  the  end,  and,  on  the  other,  that  of 
poetic  persons,  a  pleasure  in  viewing  the  whole  as 
a  single  and  simple  jewel — a  painting  of  action 
more  poetic  by  the  grace  of  nature  than  its  author 
had  the  genius  to  make  it.    And  melody  adds  to 

can  only  express  subjects  of  which  the  wholes  or  parts  are 
consecutive. 

"Subjects,  the  wholes  or  parts  of  which  exist  in  juxta- 
position, are  termed  bodies.  Consequently  bodies,  with 
their  visible  properties,  are  the  special  subjects  of  painting. 

"Subjects,  the  wholes  or  parts  of  which  are  consecutive, 
are  generally  termed  actions.  Consequently  actions  are 
the  special  subjects  of  poetry." — ^Lessing's  "Laocoon," 
chapter  XVI. 


REALIZATION  OF  ACTION        101 

the  first  kind  of  pleasure  the  excitement  of  sus- 
pense, while  rhythm  exalts  the  pure  poetry  of 
ballads. 

"  Hie  upon  Hielands, 

And  laigh*  upon  Tay, 

Bonny  George  Campbell 

Rode  out  on  a  day, 

Saddled  and  bridled 

Sae  gallant  to  see. 

Hame  cam'  his  gude  horse. 

But  never  cam'  he. 

**  Down  ran  his  auld  mither, 
Greetin'  fu'  sair; 
Out  ran  his  bonny  bride. 
Reaving  her  hair; 
*My  meadow  lies  green, 
And  my  corn  is  unshorn. 
My  barn  is  too  bigg, 
And  my  babe  is  unborn.* 

"Saddled  and  bridled, 
And  booted  rode  he; 
A  plume  in  his  helmet, 
A  sword  at  his  knee; 
But  toom^  cam'  his  saddle 
A'  bluidy  to  see, 
O  hame  cam'  his  gude  horse. 
But  never  cam'  he." 

These  ballads  of  the  people,  though  they  derive 
from  the  fingers  of  time  a  touch  of  perfection  not 
their  own,  were  none  the  less  surely  the  work  of 
poets.    They  have  a  discrimination  of  emotional 

1  laigh = low  *  toom = empty 


102         ENJOYMENT  OF  POETRY 

atmosphere,  an  occasional  poetic  word  used  with 
exquisite  regard  to  that,  which  proves  the  receiv- 
ing mind.  It  proves  that  the  purpose  of  this 
begmning  was  not  merely  to  reach  the  end. 
We  are  permitted  to  pause  at  the  sight  of  that 
bonny  bride  "reaving  her  hau-."  Yet,  upon  the 
whole,  there  is  a  scarcity  of  these  choices  in  bal- 
lad literature,  and  a  repetition  of  conventional 
comparisons,  which  reveals  in  their  authors  a 
dilution  of  the  poetic  love  with  a  too  forward 
look.  They  have  not  that  idle  enjoyment  of 
qualities  which  delays  the  action  in  great  epics. 
The  Iliad  and  the  Odyssey  were  sung  to  an 
achieving  people  and  they  rely  for  popularity, 
like  ballads,  fundamentally  upon  their  core  of 
narrative  suspense;  yet  they  assume  with  a  more 
royal  assurance  that  their  hearers  will  be  hospit- 
able to  the  individual  nature  of  the  events 
detailed,  and  that  the  world  in  which  these  events 
happen  is  itself  worth  looking  round  in. 

Only  a  truly  poetic  fervor  will  endure  the  delays 
in  Homer,  or  consider  that  the  Iliad  is  not  a  clut- 
tered narrative.  The  poet  is  never  more  alive 
than  when  he  has  stopped  the  action,  and  lined 
up  his  combatants,  upon  one  excuse  or  another, 
to  contemplate  their  aspect.  I  quote  one  of  these 
instances  for  the  simple  poetic  delight  that  it 
gives.  ^  ■    - 


REALIZATION  OF  ACTION        103 

"So,  high  in  hope,  they  sat  the  whole  night  through 
In  warUke  lines,  and  many  watch-fires  blazed. 
As  when  in  heaven  the  stars  look  brightly  forth 
Round  the  clear-shining  moon,  while  not  a  breeze 
Stirs  in  the  depths  of  air,  and  all  the  stars 
Are  seen,  and  gladness  fills  the  shepherd's  heart. 
So  many  fires  in  sight  of  Iliimi  blazed. 
Lit  by  the  sons  of  Troy,  between  the  ships 
And  eddying  Xanthus:  on  the  plain  there  shone 
A  thousand;  fifty  warriors  by  each  fire 
Sat  in  its  light.    Their  steeds  beside  the  cars — 
Champing  their  oats  and  their  white  barley — stood 
And  waited  for  the  golden  mom  to  rise." 

Not  only  after  night  comes  on,  however,  and 
while  the  actors  sleep,  does  Homer  make  his  lin- 
gerings  and  excm-sions,  but  even  in  the  heat  of 
battle  and  while  spears  quiver  in  the  fists  of  he- 
roes. Perhaps  the  most  soul-surprising  calamity 
that  could  befall  the  Greeks  was  that  their  bul- 
wark Ajax,  large  of  muscle  and  soul,  should  fall 
away  before  the  horses  of  the  car  of  Hector,  which 
came  crashing  through  the  ranks  like  a  storm  of 
wind. 

"Father  Jove  Almighty  touched  with  fear 
The  heart  of  AjaxI" 

Here  surely  is  a  situation  of  which  we  cry  for 
the  outcome  I  And  yet  for  the  length  of  fifty  lines 
and  more  we  are  expected  to  drink  in  the  spec- 
tacle, and  not  only  that,  but  even  to  depart  from 
it  upon  a  tour  of  reminiscence.    A  hungry  lion 


104      enjoy:mext  of  poetry 

was  driven  off  from  the  cattle-yards  by  a  crowd  of 
farmers;  a  gang  of  small  boys  with  sticks  went 
after  a  donkey  that  had  broken  loose  into  the 
harvest. 

Nor  only  in  these  extreme  demands  upon  our 
geniality  does  the  epic  poet  reveal  his  scorn  of 
mere  getting  there;  but  even  in  the  swiftest  pas- 
sages he  paints  with  a  loving  hand.  He  flashes  a 
detail  or  a  likeness  before  us  as  quick  as  a  word. 

*'I  followed  on  their  flight  like  a  black  tempest;  fifty  cars 
I  took," 

says  boasting  Nestor. 

"Illustrious  Hector  sprang 
Into  the  camp.     His  look  was  stem  as  night." 

"Down  plunged 
The  Lycian,  like  a  diver,  from  his  place 
On  the  high  tower,  and  life  forsook  his  limbs." 

Deaths  are  the  supreme  things  in  the  Iliad. 
Never  a  warrior  falls  but  some  acutely  specific 
noise,  or  pose,  or  shuddering  exposure  of  him,  is 
made,  that  puts  the  event  into  your  very  marrow. 

"The  spear  passed  through  and  reappeared  behind. 
DotDTi  sat  the  toounded  man  vxiih  arnms  outstretched.'* 

"The  helm 
Of  massive  brass  was  vain  to  stay  the  blow: 
The  weapon  pierced  it  and  the  bone,  and  stained 
The  brain  with  blood " 


REALIZATION  OF  ACTION        105 

"It  pierced  the  spine 
Where  the  head  joins  the  neck,  and  severed  there 
The  tendons  on  each  side.    His  head  and  rrunUk 
And  nostrils  struck  the  ground  before  his  knees." 

Such  intensity  of  specification  reminds  us,  in  a 
way,  of  the  Psalms.  And  yet  there  is  no  felt  de- 
lay of  the  action.  It  is  surely  the  height  of  poetic 
narrative,  when  realization  and  suspense  thus 
unite,  not  to  exasperate,  but  to  exalt  each  other. 
Homer  was  at  times  a  master  of  such  vividness  in 
rapidity,  but  neither  he  nor  any  other  poet  has  in 
this  equalled  Shakespeare.  Look  to  Shakespeare 
for  the  poetry  of  verbs. 

"He  waxed  like  a  sea." 
"Struck  Corioli  like  a  planet." 

"As  weeds  before 
A  vessel  under  sail,  so  men  obey'd 
And  fell  below  his  stem " 

" — from  face  to  foot 
He  was  a  thing  of  blood,  whose  every  motion 
Was  tim'd  with  dying  cries." 

"And  to  the  battle  came  he;  where  he  did 
Run  reeking  o'er  the  lives  of  men,  as  if 
'T  were  a  perpetual  spoil." 

Never  was  richer  freight  of  sensuous  and  emo- 
tional experience  hung  on  a  swifter  tale.  Never, 
unless  you  could  pack  the  whole  original  parturi- 


106         ENJOYMENT  OF  POETRY 

tion  of  verbs  out  of  nouns,  and  adjectives,  and 
each  other  for  prehistoric  ages,  into  a  single  tu- 
multuous volume,  could  you  excel  the  metaphoric 
portrayal  of  action  with  which  Shakespeare  aston- 
ishes the  world. 

"Not  Romans — "  says  Coriolanus,  "as  they  are  not. 
Though  caLv'd  i'  the  porch  o'  the  capitol." 


'And  still  to  nose  the  offence- 


"With  this  ungracious  paper  strike 
The  sight " 

"This  kiss,  if  it  durst  speak. 
Would  stretch  thy  spirits  up  into  the  air" 

"Blow  winds  and  crack  your  cheeks  I" 

Such  a  wanton  manipulation  of  words  could 
awaken  nothing  but  wrath  in  a  man  like  Tolstoy, 
whose  terrific  poetic  enthusiasm  seems  to  have 
been  narrowed  in  his  later  years  almost  to  the  ex- 
clusive enjoyment  of  the  moral  emotions.  We 
can  imagine  his  sa>ang,  in  one  of  his  novels,  that 
the  wind  was  blowing  round  like  a  giant.  But 
that  would  not  do  for  Shakespeare;  he  must  spec- 
ify at  once.  He  sees  the  giant  as  quick  and  clearly 
as  he  feels  the  wind.  And  that  sudden,  exaggera- 
tive realization,  to  the  contemptuous  destruction 
of  grammar,  logic,  and  all  reliable  sobriety,  of 


REALIZATION  OF  ACTION        107 

everything  under  the  sun  that  is  mentioned,  ap- 
peared to  his  sombre  critic  to  be  a  ranting  degen- 
eration of  the  organ  which  exists  for  purposes  of 
moral  intelligence.    Yet  in  reality  that  and  no 
other  quahty  has  made  centuries  of  men  worship 
Shakespeare,  in  spite  of  all  the  sins  and  failings 
as  an  artist  or  a  sage  which  Tolstoy  more  justly 
ascribes  to  him — and  in  spite  even  of  the  unper-  ^w*^ 
ceiving  adulation  of  his  other  critics.  He  is,  with^         / 
Shelley,  the  supremely  poetic  genius  of  the  Eng-  /        ^ 
lish  language.    And  in  the  power  of  feeling  action/ 
he  is  high  above  them  all. 

It  is  doubtless  this  fact  that  made  him  so  great 
a  dramatist.  Yet  it  must  not  be  thought  that  by 
"the  realization  of  action"  we  mean  to  recall  that 
outworn  distinction  of  dramatic  from  lyric  and 
epic  poetry.  Drama  was  regarded  as  a  division  of 
poetry  by  Aristotle  simply  because  prose  dramas 
were  unknown  to  him.  In  all  the  Greek  theatres 
the  actors  spoke  poetry,  and  hence  a  distinction  be- 
tween the  art  of  acting  and  this  manner  of  speak- 
ing never  occurred  to  him.  The  whole  perform- 
ance was  covered  by  the  term  "dramatic  poetry." 
For  us,  however,  if  we  were  not  still  tangled  in 
the  scholastic  tradition  that  he  started,  the  term 
would  have  no  value  whatever.  Poetry  is  a  kind 
of  speech,  and  writers  of  drama  may  put  this  into 
the  mouths  of  their  actors,  or  they  may  not. 


108        ENJOYMENT  OF  POETRY 

When  they  do,  it  is  not  a  different  kind  of  poetry 
from  what  it  would  be  in  their  own  mouths  or 
anywhere  else.  Therefore,  when  we  say  that 
Shakespeare  is  supreme  in  the  poetry  of  action, 
we  mean  that  when  he  makes  one  of  his  characters 
speak  of  an  action,  that  action  comes  before  you 
like  a  reality.  In  the  language  of  his  own  pro- 
logue, you 

Think  when  he  talks  of  horses  that  you  see  them, 
Printing  their  proud  hoofs  i'  the  receiving  earth. 

Let  us  illustrate  the  mental  origin  of  this  high- 
handed management  of  verbs  which  we  attribute 
especially  to  Shakespeare.  I  suppose  that  al- 
most any  poetic  man  or  child,  if  he  were  to  say 
"  I  straddle  the  fence,"  would  have  some  dim  pass- 
ing of  the  shadow  of  a  horse  through  his  mind. 
He  might  even  say,  if  he  were  in  a  playful  mood, 
"as  though  it  were  a  horse,"  or  "I  pretend  it  is  a 
horse."  But  if  he  said  this  in  the  midst  of  a  stir- 
ring narrative,  we  should  resent  the  delay.  "I 
horse  the  fence,"  on  the  contrary,  would  both  flash 
the  comparison  and  make  us  jump  forward  all 
the  faster.  And  yet  it  appears  that  nobody  but 
Shakespeare  ever  wrote,  who  continually  could 
and  did  solve  these  difficulties  thus  at  a  stroke. 
Upon  the  slightest  hint  from  imagination,  he  in- 
terchanges verbs,  he  puts  nouns  or  adjectives  in 


REALIZATION  OF  ACTION        109 

the  place  of  verbs.  For  poetry's  sake,  he  dis- 
rupts all  barriers  between  the  parts  of  speech, 
reverting  to  practical  barbarity — and  it  is  this, 
the  highest  power  of  the  poetic  impulse  in  litera- 
ture, that  makes  his  language  a  distinct  creation 
amazing  in  the  way  that  language  itself  would  be 
amazing  to  one  discovering  it. 

It  is  not  uncommon  to  hear  a  Shakesperian  ex- 
pression upon  a  child's  lips,  where  language  is  truly 
being  born.  "The  hurt  blooded,*'  for  example,  is 
vivid  through  a  spontaneous  transfer  of  the  parts 
of  speech. 

Verbs  are  fewer  than  nouns;  they  are  more 
highly  generalized  and  more  rigidly  distinguished 
from  each  other.  The  truth  is,  they  are  of  greater 
practical  importance  than  nouns,  a  more  finished 
instrument,  and  their  conventional  hold  upon  the 
mind  is  stronger.  So  it  has  hardly  ever  occurred 
to  rhetoricians  that  verbs  are  subject  to  such  liber- 
ties as  Shakespeare  took  with  them.  They  have 
regarded  metaphor,  or  condensed  comparison,  as  a 
function  of  nouns  only.  But  if  they  had  under- 
stood that  metaphor  is  only  an  exaggeration  of 
that  comparison  between  two  experiences  which 
is  intimated  by  almost  any  poetic  name,  they 
could  hardly  have  made  this  error.  When  Burns 
says  of  the  mountain  daisy, 
**Yet  cheerfully  thou  glinted  forth  amid  the  storm ** 


no        ENJOYMENT  OF  POETRY 

he  avails  himself,  only  more  instantly,  of  the  same 
comparison  that  he  uses  when  he  calls  the  flower 
itself  a  "bonny  gem."  Both  the  nomi  and  the 
verb  are  names  that  compare.  And  when  Tenny- 
son says, 

"Let  the  wild 
Lean-headed  eagles  yelp  alone!" 

he  puts  into  that  verb  more  power  of  the  com- 
parison with  ranging  dogs,  or  jackals,  than  he 
could  with  any  overt  metaphor  that  a  rhetoric 
would  recognize.  He  paints  the  action  with  the 
very  word  that  names  it.  He  paints  for  once 
as  Shakespeare  would. 

Generally,  however,  the  less  drastic  poets  have 
been  content  to  color  actions  by  the  use  of  simile 
or  modifying  clause  or  phrase.  And  they  have 
been  perpetually  tormented  by  the  fact  that  such 
modifiers,  while  they  enhance  the  poetic  effect  in 
the  accepted  way,  nevertheless  tend  to  destroy 
with  art  that  poetry  which  pertains  by  nature  to  a 
swift  succession  of  names  conveying  action.  In 
some  form  this  problem  is  rarely  absent  from  the 
deHberations  of  a  narrative  poet.  How  shall  he 
realize  a  moving  thing  without  stopping  it? 

In  those  rare  first  stanzas  of  the  poem  "To  a 
Waterfowl,"  by  William  Cullen  Bryant,  occur 
these  lines: 


REALIZATION  OF  ACTION        111 

"As,  darkly  seen  against  the  crimson  sky. 
Thy  figure  floats  along." 

And  Bryant  is  said  to  have  originally  written: 

"As,  darkly  painted  on  the  crimson  sky. 
Thy  figure  floats  along." 

He  made  the  change,  I  believe,  in  fideUty  to  tihe 
poetry  which  nature,  and  not  he,  created — the 
trueness  of  the  naked  verse  to  motion.  And  that 
diflSculty,  that  sacrifice,  is  symbolic  for  all  writers 
of  poetic  narrative.  When  their  art  cannot  exalt 
and  vivify  without  delay,  then  they  are  better 
without  the  art,  as  Byron  was.  Let  their  narra- 
tive be  clear,  and  swift,  and  rhythmical — ^it  is 
inevitably  poetic. 

Yet  its  poetry  is  never,  for  the  common  reader, 
the  essence  of  it.  For  the  essence  of  all  high  nar- 
rative is  anticipation,  and  the  essence  of  poetry  is 
realization,  and  they  are  opposed.  It  was,  in- 
deed, the  discovery  of  their  difference,  the  separa- 
tion of  story-telling  from  the  poetic  art,  that  lost 
for  poetry  its  universal  place  and  influence.  It 
was  not  industry,  nor  sanity,  nor  science,  nor  the 
greater  generality  of  language — none  of  these 
things  has  so  profoundly  affected  the  prevalence 
of  poetic  language.  But  the  common  novel,  and 
;  the  prose  drama,  and  the  newspaper — made  very 
\  meagre  in  specific  qualities  of  experience,  but  full 


112         ENJOYMENT  OF  POETRY 

of  general  suspense — have  supplanted  poetry  in 
people's  idle  hours.  Poetic  utterance  is  returning 
into  the  novel,  as  all  the  followers  of  Turgenieff 
witness;  poetic  utterance  is  even  returning  with 
popularity  into  the  theatre.  As  for  the  news- 
papers— the  world  \vill  yet  recover  from  that 
mania.  And  meanwhile  poetry  will  live  beside 
them,  if  not  loved  so  much  perhaps,  or  by  so 
many,  yet  loved  more  purely  for  itself. 


CHAPTER  IX 
REALIZATION  OF  THINGS 

When  people  began  to  tell  stories  in  practical 
words,  the  distinctive  qualities  of  poetic  words  be- 
came more  sharply  observed.  Colors  and  shapes, 
and  smells,  and  sounds  of  concrete  things,  were 
seen  constantly  attracting  the  attention  in  the 
language  of  poets.  It  was  sensuous  language.  It 
appeared  to  move  somewhat  slowly  and  be  full 
of  pictures.  And  so  there  arose  among  those  who 
were  seeking  to  catch  and  confine  the  essence  of 
poetry,  which  is  quicksilver,  within  the  limits  of  a 
definition,  the  term  "word-painting."  With  that 
they  thought  to  sum  up  the  whole  difference  be- 
tween poetry  and  practical  speech. 

And  when  we  turn  from  the  swift  and  all  too 
naked  tale  of  some  elopement,  as  it  may  appear 
in  a  popular  novel,  or  in  the  morning  paper,  to 
such  a  poem  as  "The  Eve  of  Saint  Agnes,"  we 
may  feel  perhaps  that  "word-painting"  is  a  true 
definition  of  the  difference.  In  the  poem  it  is  not 
what  happens — that  can  wait! — but  to  whom, 
and  where,  and  in  what  light,  among  what  dra- 
peries and  music,  with  what  warmth  and  cold,  what 
113 


114         ENJOYMENT  OF  POETRY 

weather  beating  on  the  panes — these  are  the  inter- 
ests that  we  dwell  upon.  The  whole  first  stanza 
gives  us  little  more  information  than  would  a 
glance  at  the  thermometer,  but  it  gives  a  view  and 
a  sensation  that  winter's  self  could  not  excel: 

*'St.  Agnes*  Eve — ^Ah,  bitter  chill  it  was  I 
The  owl,  for  all  his  feathers,  was  a-cold; 
The  hare  limp'd  trembling  through  the  frozen  grass. 
And  silent  was  the  flock  in  woolly  fold: 
Numb  were  the  Beadsman's  fingers,  while  he  told 
His  rosary,  and  while  his  frosted  breath " 

lingering  upon  these  words,  receiving  them  into 
our  veins,  is  it  not  possible  for  us  to  be  entranced 
away  from  our  too  palpable  surroundings,  to 
shiver  with  the  old  man  muttering  there  so  long 
ago  in  futile  piety,  to  feel  our  own  fingers  large, 
and  see  that  swift  white  disappearance  of  the 
breath  on  frosty  air?  That  is  the  mood  in  which 
the  poem  will  be  enjoyed.  It  is  a  serenely  mov- 
ing series  of  high  portraitures.  It  seems  a  miracle 
that  written  words  should  ever  have  so  richly 
painted  on  a  page  the  full  experience  of  the  senses. 

"  A  casement  high  and  triple-arch'd  there  was, 
All  garlanded  with  carven  imag'ries 
Of  fruits,  and  flowers,  and  bimches  of  knot-grass. 
And  diamonded  with  panes  of  quaint  device, 
Innumerable  of  stains  and  splendid  dyes. 
As  are  the  tiger-moth's  deep-damask'd  wings; 
And  in  the  midst,  'rnong  thousand  heraldries. 


REALIZATION  OF  THINGS        115 

And  twilight  saints,  and  dim  emblazonings, 
A  shielded  scutcheon  blush'd  with  blood  of  queens  and 
kings. 

"  Full  on  this  casement  shone  the  wintry  moon, 
And  threw  warm  gules  on  Madeline's  fair  breast, 
As  down  she  knelt  for  Heaven's  grace  and  boon; 
Rose-bloom  fell  on  her  hands,  together  prest, 
And  on  her  silver  cross  soft  amethyst. 
And  on  her  hair  a  glory,  like  a  saint: 
She  seem'd  a  splendid  angel,  newly  drest, 
Save  wings,  for  heaven: — ^Porphyro  grew  faint: 
She  knelt,  so  pure  a  thing,  so  free  from  mortal  taint. 

"Anon  his  heart  revives:  her  vespers  done. 
Of  all  its  wreathM  pearls  her  hair  she  frees; 
Unclasps  her  warmM  jewels  one  by  one; 
Loosens  her  fragrant  bodice;  by  degrees 
Her  rich  attire  creeps  rustling  to  her  knees: 
Half-hidden,  like  a  mermaid  in  sea-weed. 
Pensive  awhile  she  dreams  awake,  and  sees, 
In  fancy,  fair  Saint  Agnes  in  her  bed, 
But  dares  not  look  behind,  or  all  the  charm  is  fled. 

"  Soon,  trembling  in  her  soft  and  chilly  nest. 
In  sort  of  wakeful  swoon,  perplex'd  she  lay. 
Until  the  poppied  warmth  of  sleep  oppress'd 
Her  soothM  limbs,  and  soul  fatigued  away; 
Flown,  like  a  thought,  until  the  morrow-day; 
Blissfully  haven'd  both  from  joy  and  pain; 
Clasp'd  like  a  missal  where  swart  Paynims  pray; 
Blinded  alike  from  sunshine  and  from  rain. 

As  though  a  rose  should  shut,  and  be  a  bud  again. 

"  Then  by  the  bed-side,  where  the  faded  moon 
Made  a  dim,  silver  twilight,  soft  he  set 
A  table,  and,  half  anguish'd,  threw  thereon 


116         ENJOYMENT  OF  POETRY 

A  cloth  of  woven  crimson,  gold,  and  jet : — 
O  for  some  drowsy  Morphean  amulet! 
The  boisterous,  midnight,  festive  clarion. 
The  kettle-drum,  and  far-heard  clarionet. 
Affray  his  ears,  though  but  in  dying  tone : — 
The  hall  door  shuts  again,  and  all  the  noise  is  gone. 

"  And  still  she  slept  an  azure-lidded  sleep. 
In  blanched  linen,  smooth,  and  lavender'd. 
While  he  from  forth  the  closet  brought  a  heap 
Of  candied  apple,  quince,  and  plum,  and  gourd; 
With  jellies  soother  than  the  creamy  curd, 
And  lucent  syrops,  tinct  with  cinnamon; 
Manna  and  dates,  in  argosy  transferr'd 
From  Fez;  and  spiced  dainties,  every  one, 

From  silken  Samarcand  to  cedar'd  Lebanon." 

We  cannot  refrain  from  asking  upon  what  prin- 
ciples a  poet  makes  these  choices  and  comparisons, 
that  with  their  magic  he  creates  out  of  that  thin 
line  of  words  a  full  environment.  Upon  what  gen- 
eral rules  could  we  be  taught  to  say  the  "  silver- 
snarling  trumpets,"  or  "twilight  saints,"  or  "az- 
ure-lidded sleep,"  or  "jellies  soother  than  the 
creamy  curd,"  and  so  convey  a  presence  to  the 
ear,  the  eye,  the  tongue?  We  cannot  refrain  from 
asking  such  questions,  but  we  can,  if  we  are  wise, 
refrain  from  answering  them.  We  can  say:  Go 
to  the  particulars — there  are  no  rules!  Or  rather: 
There  is  a  new  principle,  and  a  new  rule,  for  every 
act  of  greatness.  They  are  Time's  fools  who 
summarize. 


REALIZATION  OF  THINGS        117 

One  of  the  principles  at  least  is  Beauty.  "  Az- 
ure-lidded sleep"  is  beautiful.  But  Beauty — ■ 
even  in  this  poem — is  by  no  means  supreme. 
"Snarling'*  as  a  name  for  trumpets  is  more  sur- 
prising for  its  truth,  a  kind  of  outrage  against 
beauty.  Beauty  pleads  against  whole  pages  of 
the  greatest  poetry.  I  think  of  Spenser's  awful 
stanza  where  the  dragon  spreads  her  filth;  no 
ingenuous  mind  would  call  it  beautiful.  I  think 
of  Shakespeare's  execrations.  I  think  of  Whit- 
man. 

''The  malformM  limbs  are  tied  to  the  surgeon's  table, 
What  is  removed  drops  horribly  in  a  pail." 

"The  prostitute  draggles  her  shawl,  her  bonnet  bobs  on  her 
tipsy  and  pimpled  neck." 

No,  not  beauty,  nor  yet  unbeauty — not  truth  >  C  j^jJf^ 
nor  untruth,  nor  simplicity,  nor  complexity,  nor 
the  sublime,  nor  the  familiar,  nor  the  thing  whose     $^^^^^^^ 
name  is  rhythmical,  nor  the  thing  whose  name 
gives  welcome  interruption  to  the  rhythm,  nor  the 
exciting,  nor  the  soothing,  nor  the  characteristic, 
nor  even  the  unhabitual,  is  a  master  principle  for    h^^^tjJ'f^ 
the  art  of  giving  names.    There  is  no  master  prin-     ^     «/  •* 
ciple  for  that  art  whose  very  nature  is  to  shun 
generality,  and  cleave  to  the  unique  nature  of 
each  individual  experience.  ^ 


118         ENJOYIVIENT  OF  POETRY 

There  is  no  master  principle — but  there  is  a 
principle  that  rises  in  its  generality  above  the 
others,  because  it  is  based  deeper  in  the  nature 
of  our  consciousness.  It  is  not  the  principle  of 
the  beautiful,  however,  but  of  the  unhabitual. 
\  Poetry  is  the  art  of  keeping  us  awake  in  idleness, 
and  to  that  end  it  is  almost  essential  that,  how- 
ever a  thing  be  named,  it  should  not  be  named  with 
exactly  the  words  that  we  expect.  Habit  is  the 
arch-enemy  of  reahzation.  No  matter  how  poetic 
a  name  may  have  been  in  its  first  application,  or 
when  we  first  received  it,  let  it  grow  common  in 
that  application,  and,  even  though  it  should  ac- 
quire no  practical  use,  its  life  withers  away. 
The  choice  and  the  comparison  both  die  out  of  it. 
It  learns  to  slide  unnoticed  through  the  mind. 
Homer's  most  awakening  epithets  became,  with 
endless  repetition,  no  better  for  the  purposes  of 
poetry  than  Jack  or  John.  And  we  have  killed 
with  iteration  in  our  churches  half  the  living  words 
of  Hebrew  poets.  It  was  a  daring  reahzation  of 
the  beUeved  nature  of  Christ  to  call  him  Lamb  of 
God;  it  was  still  more  daring  a  comparison  to  call 
him  King.  But  to  us  these  words  are  only  faded 
labels,  and  we  interchange,  or  mix  them,  indis- 
criminately. 

"Crown  him  with  many  crowns. 
The  Lamb  upon  his  throne  I" 


REALIZATION  OF  THINGS        119 

we  sing,  in  sleepy  oblivion  of  a  ridiculous  picture  I 
Most  of  the  hymns  are  dead.  And  to  those 
piously  reared,  a  great  part  of  the  Bible  itself  is 
beyond  reviving.  Its  words  have  grown  habitual, 
and  their  poetry  has  ceased  to  be. 

The  fact  that  poetic  words  are  thus  ever  fading 
with  use,  and  degenerating  into  mere  designations, 
and  the  fact  that  it  is  not  always  easy  to  tell  how 
far  they  have  faded,  gives  rise  to  the  old  school- 
room tragedy  of  "mixed  figures."  A  "mixed  fig- 
iu*e"  is  either  the  union  of  two  incongruous  com- 
parisons—as in  the  example  of  the  crowned  lamb — 
or  it  is  the  use  of  a  comparison  accidentally  inap- 
propriate to  its  object,  as  when  I  say  "he  landed  in 
the  water."  These  are  both  errors  of  the  lifeless 
imagination,  and  due  to  the  fact  that  a  name  once 
poetic  has  grown  habitual.  "To  land  upon  some- 
thing" was  at  first  a  sufficiently  living  metaphor 
taken  from  the  sea,  but  it  long  ago  grew  common, 
and  the  practical  mood  seized  upon  it,  and  now  it 
can  be  applied  even  to  its  own  poetic  opposite 
without  our  f eehng  the  incongruity.  When  poetic 
words  have  gone  as  far  as  that  into  the  blight  of 
custom,  they  may  well  be  called  dead,  and  dedi- 
cated to  the  use  of  science.  For  science  is  seeking 
to  give  permanent  names,  with  fixed  habits  of 
reaction  attached  to  them,  whereas  the  names  of 
poetry  are  by  their  very  definition  new  and  transi- 
tory. 


120         EXJOY^IENT  OF  POETRY 

Many  a  sharp  divergence  in  poetry  from  the 
common  usages  of  language  has  no  other  justifica- 
tion— and  needs  none — than  lies  in  the  fact  that 
it  is  a  divergence.  It  begets  surprise,  which  is 
close  kin  to  consciousness  itself.  There  is  an  in- 
trepid defiance  of  expectation  in  that  poem  of 
Edward  Carpenter's,  "Little  Brook  Without  a 
Name" — one  of  the  very  precious  poems  of  recent 
times.  "The  little  mouse,"  he  says,  "the  water- 
shrew,  walks  {even  like  Jesus  Christ)  upon  the 
flood,  paddHng  quickly  over  the  surface  with  its 
half -webbed  feet."  The  poet  had,  no  doubt,  a 
practical  purpose — to  intend  by  this  comparison 
the  kinship  in  divinity  of  all  nature — but  he  was 
not  bUnd,  I  beheve,  to  the  pure  poetic  value  of 
our  astonishment.  Homer  himself  cannot  be  said 
to  have  been  above  an  interest  in  shocking  his 
readers,  when  he  so  unexpectedly  announced  that 

"Prayers 
Are  the  daughters  of  Almighty  Jupiter, 
Lame,  tprinkled,  and  squint-eyed " 

Such  extreme  measures  are  at  times  indispen- 
sable to  the  sustainment  of  poetry.  Something 
has  to  explode.  Our  souls  must  be  invaded  and 
ravaged,  so  ponderous  is  their  lethargy  in  which 
they  apprehend  only  vague  presences  and  general 
bearings  of  things.  Sing  "Lord!  Lord!"  forever, 
and  you  rouse  no  heart  to  repentance;  but  shout 


REALIZATION  OF  THINGS        121 

"Sky-Blasting  Jehovah!"  and  some  necks  will 
move. 

This,  then,  is  a  principle — ^if  beyond  the  acts 
themselves  of  choosing  and  comparing  there 
can  be  a  general  principle — upon  which  the  poet 
makes  his  words,  which  are  consecutive,  paint  ob- 
jects which  are  juxtaposed.  He  makes  the  words 
surprise  us,  and  we  look  around.  "The  very  col- 
ors of  her  coat,"  he  says  of  the  virgin,  "  were  better 
than  good  news!"  And  who  can  pass  instantly 
from  such  a  phrase,  or  from  the  contemplation 
of  such  colors?  The  invisible  skylark  singing  is 
"Uke  an  unbodied  joy" — he  brings  the  abstract 
into  the  contemplation  of  the  concrete,  reversing 
the  customs  even  of  poetry,  and  we  cannot  but 
pause  there  in  wonder.  Or  he  violates  the  very 
discrimination  of  our  separate  senses,  the  deepest 
habit  of  perceptual  life:  "The  fire  cries  with 
Hght,"  he  says.  All  possible  disorganizations  of 
the  categories,  not  of  grammar  only,  but  of  per- 
ception, and  of  thought,  belong  to  poetry,  because 
these  too  are  habits,  and  in  them  our  individual 
spirits  sleep. 

Surprise  belongs  to  poetry.  But  let  us  say  no 
more  than  that.  Let  us  not  try  to  make  even  the 
unhabitual  an  absolute  or  unqualified  rule.  It 
seems,  indeed,  that  the  greater  a  poet's  experience, 
the  more  is  his  reliance  upon  this  principle  miti- 


122         ENJOYMENT  OF  POETRY 

gated,  or  at  least  mingled  with  other  considera- 
tions. Greater  poets  do  not  merely  surprise  us, 
but  they  surprise  us  with  the  true,  the  beautiful, 
the  ugly,  the  distinctive,  in  a  thing.  They  sur- 
prise us  oftenest  by  teUing  us  most  exactly  what 
we  knew. 

"The  cat  on  the  house-sill"  strikes  off  to  my 
thought  a  picture  clear  as  day,  and  "  the  sun-warm 
cat"  is  a  touch  to  my  hand.  Yet  I  am  not  sure 
but,  if  I  took  a  glance  over  the  world,  I  should  find 
that  a  large  majority  of  cats  are  both  "sun- 
warm,"  and  "on  the  house-sill."  It  is  altogether 
inevitable,  and  yet  signally  characteristic  of  them, 
that  they  should  be.  There  is  no  strained  acute- 
ness  of  perception  in  the  poets  whose  poetry  is 
nature.  Their  words  are  only  the  things  they 
sing  of. 

"The  chanting  linnet,  or  the  mellow  thrush; 
Hailing   the   setting   sun,  sweet,  in   the   green   thorn 
bush " 

Thus  to  awaken  us  with  words  that  are  only  the 
surest  words,  is  a  high  gift,  which  comports  with 
all  that  we  call  classic.  It  was  this  that  made  the 
early  fame  of  Robert  Burns  eternal.  And  I  think 
it  was  this  too — the  simple,  the  inevitable,  in  her 
singing — that  gave  to  Sappho  the  supreme  place 
in  antiquity  and  through  time.    She  was  called 


REALIZATION  OF  THINGS        123 

"The  Poet,"  because  her  very  looking  upon  a 
thing  was  poetry,  and  her  poetry  was  but  looking 
upon  it.    To  Evening  she  said: 

"Evening,  you  bring  all  things  that  the  bright  morning 
scattered  wide. 
You  bring  the  sheep,  you  bring  the  goat,  you  bring  the 
child  to  his  mother." 

Perhaps  it  requires  some  acquaintance  with 
poetry  to  develop  a  high  appreciation  of  what  is  so 
greatly  simple  in  choice  or  comparison.  Perhaps 
the  whole  joy  of  it  is  never  felt  except  as  a  relief 
after  the  self-conscious  astonishments  that  are  de- 
Hvered  to  us  by  less  mature  genius.  When  Homer 
tells  us  that  Ajax  gave  ground  before  his  opponent 
by  "moving  knee  after  knee,"  if  we  are  old  enough 
in  the  love  of  poetry  to  perceive  that  anything  has 
been  said  at  all,  we  perceive  that  the  final  word 
for  the  imagination  has  been  said.  It  is  not  a 
word  ingenious,  weighty,  significant,  or  suggestive 
of  anything  but  its  object.  It  is  simply  the  exact 
truth  of  perception,  conveyed  with  singleness  and 
restraint.  It  surprises  us  with  unsurprise — and 
that,  if  it  be  paradoxical  enough  to  destroy  itself, 
we  may  safely  set  up  as  a  master  principle.  It  is  a 
final  perfection  of  the  art  of  painting  things  with 
words. 


CHAPTER  X 
EMOTIONAL  REALIZATION 

"The  Eve  of  Saint  Agnes"  is  wonderful,  not 
only  for  the  vividness  of  its  pictures,  but  for  the 
fact  that  they  are  made  to  move  before  us  in  a 
stream  of  romantic  feeling.  The  feeling  is  pure 
and  sustained;  and  therein  the  poet  has  revealed  a 
great  part  of  his  genius.  He  has  roused  in  us,  be- 
sides an  imagination  of  things,  the  real  experience 
of  an  emotion.  He  has  done  this,  however,  by 
those  same  acts  of  choice  and  comparison.  He 
has  chosen  for  vivid  imagining,  many  things  about 
which  the  emotion  is  wont  to  cling,  and  compared 
them  with  other  things  having  the  same  quality. 
In  many  parts  of  the  poem  this  has  been  the  sole 
motive  of  his  w^ords. 

The  ode  "To  a  Nightingale"  is  perhaps  even 
more  completely  dominated  by  an  emotion.  Let 
us  consider,  without  any  context,  one  stanza  of  it: 

"Fade  far  away,  dissolve,  and  quite  forget 

What  thou  among  the  leaves  hast  never  known. 
The  weariness,  the  fever,  and  the  fret 

Here,  where  men  sit  and  hear  each  other  groan; 
Where  palsy  shakes  a  few,  sad,  last  gray  hairs, 

Where  youth  grows  pale,  and  spectre-thin,  and  dies; 
124 


EMOTIONAL  REALIZATION        125 

Where  but  to  think  is  to  be  full  of  sorrow 
And  leaden-ey'd  despairs, 
Where  beauty  cannot  keep  her  lustrous  eyes, 
Or  new  Love  pine  at  them  beyond  to-morrow." 

As  a  realization  of  the  sorrow  of  Kfe,  we  can 
see — perhaps  without  the  violation  of  a  too  mi- 
nute analysis — the  high  conscious  or  intuitive  skill 
of  poetry  with  which  this  stanza  was  fashioned. 
Tired,  feverous,  and  anxious  people,  old  people, 
young  people  growing  old,  beauty  and  love  ceasing 
to  be — ^these  are  the  things  chosen  to  sustain  the 
emotion.  And  they  in  turn  are  made  vivid  by  a 
second  choice  of  their  piercing  details — the  pallor, 
the  groaning,  the  gray  hairs  sad  and  few,  the  thin- 
ness of  the  sick,  and  those  "lustrous"  eyes — won- 
dering tearfully  at  the  promise  of  their  own  decay 
— and  finally  that  newness  of  love,  that  in  the 
morning  is  gone.  And  our  sense  of  these  things, 
our  consciousness,  is  still  further  enhanced  by 
comparisons  and  intimations  of  comparison  too 
subtle  to  be  told.  They  are  like  spectres,  the  thin 
people,  and  the  eyelids  are  lead,  and  the  thinking 
of  it  all  is  Hke  a  well  filled  full  of  sorrow. 

It  is  ungrateful  to  explain  a  wonder,  and  fortu- 
nately it  is  not  altogether  possible.  The  stinging 
residual  essence  of  every  experience  is  individual, 
and  not  to  be  set  forth  in  general  language.  The 
best  of  poetry  is  when  it  starts  the  old  indefinable 


126         ENJOYMENT  OF  POETRY 

echo  of  reminiscence  and  hope.  The  quality  of 
some  vital  instant  in  our  past,  or  our  ancestors*, 
some  tremulous  balance  of  the  affections,  is  just 
re-suggested  and  appears  there  only  as  fleeing 
from  us  for  an  instant,  and  then  it  is  gone  into 
the  past  again,  and  we  into  the  future,  forever. 

For  the  attainment  of  these  moments  there  are 
no  rules,  because  they  depend  upon  the  things 
that  make  us  different  from  each  other.  Each 
will  have  his  own  chosen  poems.  We  can  only 
generally  declare  this  much — that  wherever  a  poig- 
nant emotion  is  sustained,  a  sensuous  memory 
sustains  it.  Even  those  passions  that  we  call  in- 
tellectual, or  spiritual,  seek  always  an  image  and 
cKng  to  it.  When  God  becomes  a  spirit,  Christ 
is  begotten.  And  when  Christ  is  blended  with 
God,  we  worship  the  cross  that  he  died  on.  It  is 
only  thus  we  can  hold  our  love  and  our  pain.  As 
Walt  Whitman,  in  his  psalm  of  the  death  of 
Abraham  Lincoln,  has  merged  the  very  body  of 
sorrow  in  a  trinity  of  sensations,  the  fragrance 
of  lilacs,  the  pendulous  star,  and  the  quivering 
voice  of  a  bird — 

"Lflac  and  star  and  bird  twined  with  the  chant  of  my  soul, 
There  in  the  fragrant  pines  and  the  cedars  dusk  and 
dim " 

SO  has  the  human  heart  always  done  with  that 
which  it  would  have  eternal. 


EMOTIONAL  REALIZATION        127 

Poetry  is  not  often  written  without  strong  emo- 
tion, and  not  often  without  a  dim  desire  to  eter- 
nalize emotion.  And  this  again  has  persuaded 
men  who  love  that  quality  of  poetry  to  a  limiting 
definition.  They  have  held  that  to  enjoy  emotion 
without  anxiety  is  the  essence  of  poetic  pleasure. 
This  opinion  was  intimated  in  the  writings  of 
Wordsworth  and  Shelley,  but  reached  its  highest 
scientific  expression  in  an  essay  of  John  Stuart 
Mill,  who  defines  the  natural  poets  as  "  those  who 
are  so  constituted,  that  emotions  are  the  links  of 
association  by  which  their  ideas,  both  sensuous 
and  spiritual,  are  connected  together." 

We  can  see  the  reason  for  this  opinion  by  ex- 
amining almost  any  lines  of  Shelley — ^to  whose 
writings  Mill  himself  refers,  in  distinction  from 
those  of  Wordsworth,  as  the  poems  of  a  poet. 

"And  like  a  dying  lady,  lean  and  pale. 
Who  totters  forth,  wrapt  in  a  gauzy  veil. 
Out  of  her  chamber,  led  by  the  insane 
And  feeble  wanderings  of  her  fading  brain. 
The  moon  arose  upon  the  murky  earth, 
A  white  and  shapeless  mass." 

No  groimd  of  union  exists  between  the  two 
imaginations  in  these  lines,  except  a  potential  con- 
gruity  of  the  beholder's  emotions.  And  this  dan- 
gerous disregard,  not  merely  of  practical  similarity, 
but  of  all  the  external  senses,  is  characteristic  of 


128         ENJOYMENT  OF  POETRY 

great  modern  poets.  Whether  their  motive  be 
specifically  to  realize  an  emotion  or  not,  they  con- 
tinually bring  these  interior  vibrations  of  the 
body  into  a  realization,  in  order  to  make  it  full 
and  personal  and  strong.  They  continually 
choose  out  for  a  focus  the  quality  or  the  detail  in 
things  that  relates  them  to  our  vital  feeling,  and 
they  compare  things  together  upon  the  basis  of 
similarity  in  this  feeHng. 

Those  jewels  in  "The  Eve  of  Saint  Agnes" 
must  have  been  full  of  lustre,  a  romantic  lustre  in 
the  moonhght;  they  must  have  been  richer  even 
than  the  window-panes,  more  deep  in  hue;  but  for 
the  poet  of  our  hearts  they  were  warmed  jewels, 
they  could  not  be  more. 

Emotion  is  the  surest  arbiter  of  a  poetic  choice, 
and  it  is  the  priest  of  all  supreme  unions  in  the 
mind.  Let  things  be  ever  so  kin  in  a  sensuous  or 
objective  feature,  as  blood  is  to  roses,  but  be  the 
burdens  that  they  carry  to  the  heart  opposed, 
they  are  precarious  consorts.  Let  these  burdens 
be  the  same,  and  it  matters  not  how  alien  in  all 
else,  in  space  and  time  irreconciled,  in  act,  in  rea- 
son antipathetic  as  the  poles,  they  flow  together 
as  if  by  nature. 

"Not  so  the  eagle,  who  like  thee  could  scale 
Heaven,  and  could  nourish  in  the  sun's  domain 
Her  mighty  youth  with  morning,  doth  complain, 


EMOTIONAL  REALIZATION        129 

Soaring  and  screaming  round  her  empty  nest, 
As  Albion  wails  for  thee." 

In  the  face  of  such  evidence  and  such  authority, 
it  is  true,  however,  that  emotion  is  not  the  es- 
sence, nor  a  definitive  feature  of  poetry.  The 
most  practical  language — like  earnest  achieve- 
ment itself — can  awaken  the  emotions.  It  is  not 
the  existence  of  these  emotions,  but  our  attitude 
to  them,  that  distinguishes  the  poetic  mood.  We 
wish  to  experience  them  for  their  own  sake. 
And  in  exactly  the  same  way  we  wish  to  experi- 
ence sensations,  or  actions,  or  ideas.  It  may  be 
that  we  are  not  often  attracted  to  experience 
anything  whatever,  when  it  does  not  contain; 
for  us  some  emotion,  some  feeling  besides  the 
mere  attraction  or  pleasure.  But  this  does  not 
warrant  our  regarding  the  emotion  as  the  exclu- 
sive object  of  attraction.  It  rather  counsels  us 
against  so  sharply  separating  it  from  all  the  other 
qualities  that  go  to  constitute  a  thing.  Probably 
any  theory  which  regards  the  laboratory  analysis 
of  our  experience  into  emotion,  sensation,  affec- 
tion, image,  idea,  and  so  forth,  as  a  final  truth, 
will  itself  prove  but  temporary.  We  are  safer 
when  we  talk  of  experience  as  a  whole. 

Even  in  so  far,  however,  as  we  can  distinguish 
emotion  from  other  elements  in  a  perception,  we 
can  prove  that  it  is  not  always  the  object  of  a 


130        ENJOYMENT  OF  POETRY 

poet's  regard.  If  it  were,  emotional  congruity 
would  invariably  characterize  poetic  compari- 
sons; or  at  least  we  should  find  no  comparisons 
that  distinctly  violate  and  destroy  emotion.  But 
these  we  do  find  in  the  greatest  and  most  natural 
poetry.  I  have  in  mind  the  story  of  the  wounding 
of  Menelaus  in  the  Iliad, — the  poetic  pleasure  that 
is  taken  in  the  sharp  mark  of  "purple"  on  his 
thigh,  taken  in  brazen  defiance  of  the  hero's 
agony  and  peril  which  we  felt.  This  is  the  idea 
that  the  poet  associated  with  his  pHght: 

"As  when  some  Carian  or  Maconian  dame 
Tinges  with  pmple  the  white  ivory, 
To  form  a  trapping  for  the  cheeks  of  steeds, — 
And  many  a  horseman  covets  it,  yet  still 
It  lies  within  her  chamber,  to  become 
The  ornament  of  some  great  monarch's  steed 
And  make  its  rider  proud, — thy  shapely  thighs. 
Thy  legs,  and  thy  fair  ankles  thus  were  stained, 
O  Menelaus!  with  thy  purple  blood." 

Here,  at  least,  we  can  truthfully  distinguish 
sensation  from  emotion,  because  sensation  leads 
the  comparison  in  one  direction,  while  emotion 
would  lead  it  in  another.  And  the  poet's  fidelity 
is  to  the  sensation;  he  loves  the  pure  color.  In 
another  passage  of  the  Iliad,  equally  discordant 
for  the  feeUngs,  he  is  faithful  to  his  sense  of  sound. 
The  shouting  onslaught  of  armed  hosts  of  war  is 
compared  to  the  clamors  of  a  flock  of  sheep. 


EMOTIONAL  REALIZATION        131 

The  truth  is  that  a  poet's  associations  will  de- 
pend, like  those  of  his  readers,  upon  that  un- 
definitive  and  incalculable  thing,  his  personal 
interest.  If  he  happens  to  love  color  and  love 
horses,  and  if  we  do,  and  we  are  in  no  hurry,  then 
it  is  poetic  that  we  should  pause  and  recall  to 
observation  that  Carian  maiden — her  own  arms 
stained  with  the  crying  purple  too — and  consider 
the  illustrious  steed  the  work  of  such  an  artist 
must  be  reserved  for.  Let  Menelaus  bleed — we 
must  see  the  horse! 

Emotional  choice  and  comparison  are  not  dis- 
tinctive of  poetry  from  practical  language,  but 
they  are  in  a  certain  degree  distinctive  of  modern 
from  ancient  poetry.  Only,  indeed,  by  making 
this  general  distinction  between  the  inner  and  the 
outer  feelings,  can  we  fully  explain  the  lightness, 
the  breadth,  and  health  of  early  poets.  Their 
choices  are  less  personal,  their  comparisons  more 
often  purely  sensuous,  than  ours.  They  are  com- 
parisons in  shape,  size,  color,  attitude,  texture, 
motion — comparisons  which  seem  very  wide  to 
us,  because  they  hold  things  together  which  are 
not,  and  cannot  be,  blended  deep  in  the  crucible 
of  the  heart's  passions. 

"  Thy  hair  is  as  a  iBock  of  goats 
That  lies  along  the  side  of  Mount  Gilead. 
Thy  teeth  are  like  a  flock  of  sheep  that  are  newly  shorn. 


132         ENJOYIVIENT  OF  POETRY 

Which  are  come  up  from  the  washing; 

Whereof  every  one  has  twins, 

And  none  is  bereaved  among  them." 

We  find  also  that  early  poets  are  more  idle  in 
their  comparisons,  less  rich  in  metaphor,  more 
given  to  the  long  simile,  more  given  to  the  redu- 
plication of  similes,  and  to  that  simile  that  we 
have  called  discursive,  because  our  enjoyment 
wanders  in  it  away  from  the  subject  which  it  was 
to  illumine,  and  we  find  ourselves  in  a  different 
part  of  the  world.  Indeed,  they  do  not  always 
care  to  what  object  their  comparisons  are  at- 
tached, and  they  repeat  them  like  a  refrain.  I 
beheve  that  all  these  characteristics  of  the  poetry 
of  the  ancients  can  be  comprised  in  the  statement 
that  it  is  more  purely  poetic,  more  purely  child- 
like, and  willing  to  love,  than  the  poetry"  of  later 
people.  Having  a  less  complex  en\dronment  to 
which  they  must  adapt  themselves,  and  being 
irresponsible  in  their  minds  to  a  mature  and 
austere  science,  they  were  habitually  more  free  to 
enjoy  all  qualities  of  being.  They  required  no 
profound  organic  disturbance,  no  hushed  and 
tremulous  utterance,  to  sanction  their  engaging 
in  the  enjoyment  of  poetry.  They  were  ready 
at  any  time  to  suspend  business  and  make 
an  excursion  into  the  worid.  Their  love  was 
free. 


EMOTIONAL  REALIZATION        133 

Theocritus  begins  in  this  sweetly  wandering 
language  a  lyric  which  he  calls  "passionate": 

"Hast  thou  come,  dear  youth,  with  the  third  night  and 
the  dawning;  hast  thou  come?  but  men  in  longing  grow 
old  in  a  day  I  As  spring  than  the  winter  is  sweeter,  as 
the  apple  than  the  sloe,  as  the  ewe  is  deeper  of  fleece  than 
the  lamb  she  bore;  as  a  maiden  surpasses  a  thrice-wedded 
wife,  as  the  fawn  is  nimbler  than  the  calf;  nay,  by  as  much 
as  sweetest  of  all  fowls  sings  the  clear-voiced  nightingale, 
so  much  has  thy  coming  gladdened  me  I  To  thee  have  I 
hastened  as  the  traveller  hastens  under  the  burning  sun 
to  the  shadow  of  the  ilex  tree." 

We  take  delight  in  this  free-hearted  poetry  as 
we  might  in  the  rippling  of  a  stream  where  it 
spreads  out  among  little  stones.  We  take  de- 
Kght,  thinking  of  it  as  something  unusual  and 
refreshing.  But  for  ourselves,  in  our  own  worid, 
we  have  all  too  Httle  of  it.  We  feel  that  the  poetic 
attitude  is  not  quite  allowable  in  maturity,  except 
when  demanded  by  a  deepening  of  the  passions. 
And  this  is  very  unfortunate;  because  it  makes 
people  who  have  not  deep  passions  and  yet  are 
poets,  feel  compelled  to  simulate  the  language  of 
exaltation,  and  construct  studious  verses  out  of 
strange,  intense-sounding  words,  when  they  might 
sit  down  and  write  a  little  natural  poetry  with  no 
great  exhaustion,  if  we  would  only  expect  it  of 
them. 

With  this  tyranny  of  the  inward  feelings  which 


134         ENJOYIMENT  OF  POETRY 

culture,  or  self-consciousness,  or  just  time  itself 
has  begotten,  the  loss  has  been  far  greater  than 
the  gain.  For  while  we  have  hardly  the  tendency 
to  enjoy — except  as  antique,  or  after  we  have 
named  it  "pastoral'' — such  an  address  of  a  lover 
to  his  beloved  as  these  we  quoted  from  Theocritus 
and  the  Song  of  Songs,  still  the  writers  of  such 
poems  did  have  the  power  we  have  of  being  deep 
and  swift  and  true  only  to  their  passions.  There 
are  hymns  of  the  ancient  reUgions  in  which  these 
wanderings  are  not  possible,  because  the  ecstasy 
has  utter  dominion.  And  even  Theocritus,  the 
poet  of  a  pasture-land,  has  made  as  intense  a  lyric 
of  impassioned  love — save  only  the  lost  remem- 
bered songs  of  Sappho — as  the  worid  has  record 
of.  He  has  made  also  the  high  model  for  all 
songs  of  tears,  the  model  upon  which  Milton 
formed  his  lament  for  Lycidas,  and  Shelley  the 
poem  "Adonais,"  which  he  deemed  his  greatest, 
and  which  is  perhaps  the  most  subUme  and  con- 
quering expression  of  sorrow  in  the  worid. 

Both  eariy  and  late  it  appears  that  sorrow  is 
the  great  mother  of  poetry.  It  is  most  fertile  of 
all  those  streams  of  feeling  out  of  which  high 
realizations  of  the  worid  arise,  and  which  they 
seek  to  make  eternal.  America  has  not  been  rich 
in  poems  that  are  supreme,  but  she  has  risen  in 
sorrow  to  the  heights  of  language.    Her  poet 


EMOTIONAL  REALIZATION        135 

Bryant  is  said  to  have  grown  up  within  view  of  a 
rural  grave-yard;  a  circumstance  that  can  alone  ex- 
plain his  writing  at  the  age  of  eighteen  that  final 
poem  of  the  thought  of  death,  and  never  again, 
save  for  a  few  re-echoing  lines,  a  syllable  of  great 
poetry.  "Thanatopsis"  is  a  courageous  realiza- 
tion of  death.  "  When  Lilacs  Last  in  the  Door- 
yard  Bloomed,"  another  universal  poem  of  Amer- 
ica, is  a  passionate  realization  of  death.  The 
fragments  of  Edgar  Allan  Poe  are  all  mystical 
echoes  of  the  beauty  of  death,  or  the  death  of 
beauty.  We  cannot  write  the  theory  of  emotional 
realization  without  recalling  some  songs  of  love 
and  sorrow.  And  with  them  we  may  well  cease 
writing  the  theory.  We  may  well  ascend  to  the 
truth  which  is  no  theory  in  the  poems  themselves 
— "Lycidas,"  "Adonais,"  "Thanatopsis,"  "When 
Lilacs  Last  in  the  Dooryard  Bloomed" — poems 
that  not  only  reaHze,  but  elevate,  and  make  per- 
fect for  us  that  universal  sorrow  of  which  only 
the  very  love  of  life's  experience,  pure  poetry^, 
can  ever  melt  or  mitigate  the  sting. 


f 


,aA 


CHAPTER  XI 

REALIZATION  OF  IDEAS 

Persons  of  intellectual  rather  than  sensuous 
nature,  persons  who  can  say  with  the  philosopher, 
"I  do  not  mind  a  blow,  sir, — nothing  affects  me 
but  an  abstract  idea! " — will  not  think  that  all  the 
talk  about  realization  of  action  and  word-paint- 
ing and  the  enjoyment  of  emotion,  comes  very 
near  to  the  heart  of  poetry.  For  they  too  have 
their  definition,  which  is  an  expression  of  their 
taste.  They  think  that  the  essence  of  poetry  is 
to  be  found  in  its  manner  of  expressing  ideas  or 
abstract  judgments.  And  these  it  expresses  in 
two  ways — either  by  means  of  a  symbol,  or  by 
means  of  a  concrete  example.  "  All  is  vanity," 
saith  the  preacher,  and  the  poet  adds  "a  striving 
after  wind."  "The  shortest  distance  between 
two  points,"  says  the  geometer.  "As  the  crow 
flies,"  "a  bee  Une,"  says  the  poet.  And  these 
ways  of  speaking  are  surely  distinctive  of  him. 
But  we  need  not  be  surprised  to  find  that  they 
only  illustrate  in  the  intellectual  world,  those  same 
two  acts  of  choice  and  comparison  which  we  have 
observed  in  the  world  of  things,  and  that  the 
poet's  attitude  to  an  idea  is  but  a  part  of  that 
136 


REALIZATION  OF  IDEAS  137 

attitude  toward  all  being  which  we  have  ascribed 
to  him.  He  loves  the  idea,  as  he  loves  the  thing, 
not  for  its  meaning,  its  indication  into  the  fut- 
ure, but  for  itself,  its  content  in  the  present.  He 
wishes  to  realize  the  nature  of  that.  And  he 
does  so,  either  by  choosing  among  all  the  partic- 
ulars suggested  by  the  idea,  one  which  can  bear 
the  whole  flavor  of  its  significance,  or  by  com- 
paring with  the  idea  some  being  that  is  wholly 
outside  its  significance,  but  similar  to  it. 

Suppose  that  the  idea  be  silence.  "The  butter- 
fly sleeps  on  the  village  bell,"  is  a  poem  of  this 
idea,  a  reahzation  by  means  of  the  concrete  par- 
ticular. Or  suppose  the  idea  be  that  our  sins 
shall  be  forgiven.  We  have  for  this  an  enduring 
symbol,  a  symbol  so  strong  in  native  poetry  that 
it  begot  rhythm  in  the  heart  of  the  translator: 

"Though  your  sins  be  as  scarlet, 
They  shall  be  as  white  as  snow; 
Though  they  be  red  like  crimson. 
They  shall  be  as  wool." 

Thus  to  show  forth  in  earthen  dyes  the  thoughts 
of  a  spirit,  to  make  what  is  ideal  and  impalpable 
assail  the  senses  of  the  flesh,  has  seemed  to  some 
the  high,  and  to  some  the  low,  essential  service  of 
poetry. 

It  has  seemed  high,  because  it  makes  ideas 
warm,  and  acceptable  to  those  who  can  hardly 


138         ENJOYMENT  OF  POETRY 

enjoy  them  in  a  purer  form.  It  colors  and  popu- 
larizes the  hfe  of  meditation.  We  are  not  all  ca- 
pable of  that  intellectual  love  which  is  the  invisi- 
ble support  of  the  philosopher's  austerity.  We 
must  have  in  our  ideas  an  admixture  of  the  cor- 
poreal, before  they  appear  to  us  a  natural  object 
for  affection.  I  suppose  that  Immanuel  Kant, 
who  is  the  master  of  an  intolerable  prose,  had 
within  himself  a  more  consuming  passion  for  the 
process  of  thought  than  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson. 
But  he  could  not  make  thoughts  lovable  to  the 
people,  because  he  gave  them  no  body.  Emerson 
was  perhaps  not  the  greatest  creative  thinker,  but 
he  was  a  great  lover  of  the  experience  of  thought, 
and  a  creator  of  that  experience  and  that  love  for 
others. 

Let  us  compare,  as  examples  of  the  extremes  of 
poetry  and  its  opposite  in  the  worid  of  ideas,  his 
statement  that 

"Man  is  the  facade  of  a  temple," 

with  this  sentence  from  Kant  which  deals,  for  all 
we  know,  with  somewhat  the  same  subject-matter: 

"Now,  as  in  order  to  cognize  ourselves,  in  addition  to 
the  act  of  thinking,  which  subjects  the  manifold  of  every 
possible  intuition  to  the  unity  of  apperception,  there  is 
necessary  a  determinate  mode  of  intuition,  whereby  this 
manifold  is  given;  although  my  own  existence  is  certainly 
not  mere  phaenomenon  (much  less  mere  illusion),  the  deta>» 


REALIZATION  OF  IDEAS  139 

mination  of  my  existence  can  only  take  place  confonnably 
to  the  form  of  the  internal  sense,  according  to  the  particu- 
lar mode  in  which  the  manifold  which  I  conjoin  is  given 
in  internal  intuition,  and  I  have  therefore  no  knowledge 
of  myself  as  I  am,  but  merely  as  I  appear  to  myself." 

These  heights  of  metaphysical  abstraction  are 
obviously  inaccessible  to  those  who  have  some- 
thing else  to  attend  to,  and  yet  there  is  a  joy  in 
being  up  there,  as  the  existence  of  the  book  and  all 
its  arduous  commentators  attest.  And  I  believe  it 
is  a  joy  not  altogether  different  from  that  which 
Emerson  extends  us.  For  philosophy,  even  self- 
mutilated  as  it  is  by  the  wish  to  be  also  a  science, 
is  more  truly,  or  more  generally,  a  realization  of 
the  full  nature  of  those  ideas  that  are  the  tech- 
nique of  science.  Emerson,  with  his  serene  genius 
of  expression,  perfected  this  realization.  And  he 
has  thus  had  a  more  direct  and  wider  influence 
upon  lives  of  the  nineteenth  century,  than  the  ac- 
ceptance of  any  theory  or  doctrine  can  register. 
He  has  filled  them  with  a  high  experience.  He  is 
— as  he  always  quietly  felt  himself  to  be,  in  spite 
of  the  failings  of  his  verse — essentially  a  poet.  He 
is  the  poet  of  philosophic  ideas. 

By  some  minds  this  descent  from  what  is  called 
the  "abstract  rationality"  of  a  concept  into  that 
world  of  accident  and  multiplicity  whence  it  rose, 
has  not  been  considered  a  high  experience.    To 


140         ENJOYMENT  OF  POETRY 

the  unhealthy  morality  of  mediaeval  sainthood  it 
was  a  positive  evil.  Together  with  all  things  that 
wear  the  colors  of  material  existence,  poetry  was 
dismissed  in  those  days  as  a  temptation  to  the 
soul.  It  was  named — with  a  stroke  of  poetic 
genius  which  must  itself  have  appeared  supremely 
sinful— "The  Wine  of  the  Devil."  But  even  be- 
fore and  since  then,  by  scientists  and  philosophers 
as  well  as  by  priests,  it  has  been  held  that  the 
highest  attainment  of  the  human  spirit  is  the 
process  of  thought  unadulterated  with  any  recol- 
lection of  sensuous  life.  Tradition  reports  that 
Democritus  bUnded  himself  for  the  sake  of  in- 
tellectual culture,  and  even  so  sensuous  a  Platon- 
ist  as  Shelley  declared  that  "the  deep  truth  is 
imageless."  And  so  it  has  always  seemed  that, 
even  though  there  be  nothing  sinful  in  the  mate- 
rial symbol,  there  is  at  least  something  immature 
in  depending  up)on  it.  With  the  cultivation  of 
intellect,  language  has  risen  slowly  away  from  the 
particulars,  until  now  the  names  commonly  used 
only  designate,  as  with  a  wave  of  the  hand  in  their 
direction,  vast  classes  and  common  quaHties  of 
things.  And  this  power  of  general  designation  is 
so  vital  to  what  we  call  civilization,  that  it  cannot 
but  appear  retrogressive  and  primitive  to  be  per- 
petually descending  to  the  particulars,  perpetu- 
ally remembering  individuals,  perpetually  specify- 


REALIZATION  OF  IDEAS  141 

ing  and  symbolizing  what  is  already  understood 
by  the  mind. 

It  is  primitive.  Poetry  is  of  necessity  the  lan- 
guage both  of  children  who  do  not  understand  the 
general  names  of  things,  and  savages  who  have  \ 
not  decided  upon  those  names.  The  speech  of  un- 
civilized people  is  full  of  irrelevant  specifications. 
They  continually  say  such  things  as  red  dog,  white 
dog,  curly  dog,  fat  dog,  not  because  they  wish  to 
convey  an  impression,  but  because  they  cannot 
help  it,  they  have  no  word  for  dog  in  general.  The 
Cherokee  Indians  are  without  any  verb  meaning 
to  wash,  but  they  have  verbs  meaning  wash  my 
head,  wash  another  person's  head,  wash  my  face, 
wash  my  clothes,  wash  dishes,  wash  a  child.  And 
this  feature  of  early  language  is  not  due  to  the 
predominance  in  its  originators  of  a  poetic  in- 
stinct; it  is  due  to  the  fact  that  language  arose,  not 
in  general  reflection,  but  in  particular  experiences. 
The  first  words  would  naturally  be  names  of 
special  things.  Probably  most  of  them  were 
proper  names,  the  most  special  of  all — names  of 
but  one  object  in  the  worid.  And  whenever  such 
names  are  extended  to  include  a  whole  class  of 
objects,  the  act,  however  practical  in  its  author, 
appears  poetic  to  us  because  we  have  a  name  for 
the  class  itself.  When  we  call  certain  kinds  of 
people  Jvdases,  we  do  so  for  the  sake  of  vividness; 


142         ENJOYMENT  OF  POETRY 

but  if  we  had  no  term  traitor,  we  should  be  com- 
pelled to  do  so  whether  we  wished  to  be  vivid  or 
not.  And  that  is  a  frequent  position  of  the 
savage. 

Besides  the  significant  use  of  examples,  his 
speech  is  full  of  elaborate  symboHsm.  And  this, 
too,  can  frequently  be  traced  to  his  lack  of  an 
abstract  term.  Let  us  imagine  that  a  Navajo 
Indian  has  no  such  concept  in  his  knowledge  as 
patience,  yet  one  day  it  comes  to  him  in  a  vague 
meditation  that  the  Moqui  tribe,  peaceable 
though  they  be,  are  not  altogether  contemptible. 
"Moqui  is — "  how  shall  he  say  it?  How  shall  he 
express  that  notion  that  comes  so  easily  to  our 
tongues?  "Moqui  sits  dovm  happy,'*  perhaps, — 
and  to  the  civiHzed  translator  this  will  be  a  most 
poetic  idea.  But  imagine  further  that  after  a 
week  or  two  of  reflecting  upon  it  he  decides  that 
to  sit  down  happy  is  a  good  thing!  He  wishes  to 
express  that  too,  but  he  has  no  such  general  term 
as  good.  He  has  good  hunting,  good  fire-building, 
good  fighting,  but  the  idea  of  virtue  in  the  abstract 
has  never  yet  entered  his  speech.  What  shall 
he  say?  "  Sit-down-happy  is  good-fighting,"  let  us 
imagine!  And  that  is  still  more  poetic.  What 
quaUty  or  real  flavor,  indeed,  has  our  own  proverb 
^Patience  is  a  virtue — until  you  discover  the  mili- 
tary origins  of  the  last  word,  which  give  it  the 


REALIZATION  OF  IDEAS  143 

power  of  a  symbolic  realization? — Patience  is  a 
good  fight! 

Such  poetry,  not  consciously  created,  but  a  by- 
product of  the  growth  of  generality  and  abstrac- 
tion, is  rife  among  all  uncivilized  peoples.*  And, 
moreover,  their  singing  and  their  speaking  are  not 
so  separate  in  their  lives  as  ours,  and  their  passions 
not  so  subjected  to  the  time  and  place,  and  there 
is  therefore  a  continual  poetry  in  living  among 
them.  It  is  not  unlike  the  poetry  of  advancing 
science,  the  poetry  of  any  mind  that  gropes  be- 
yond the  confines  of  its  present  vocabulary. 

The  Persians  have  many  anecdotes  of  the  first 
appearance  of  poetry  in  their  literary  heroes,  and 
one  of  them  astutely  attributes  it  to  the  young 
man's  ignorance  of  technical  terminology. 

*  I  do  not  mean  to  imply  that  savages  are  not  also  in- 
tentionally poetic — more  frequently  and  more  purely  so, 
perhaps,  than  we  are.  I  do  not  know.  But  I  know  it  is  a 
profound  error  to  suppose,  because  of  these  characteristics 
of  primitive  language,  and  their  survival  in  Homeric  and 
other  early  poetic  dialects,  that  as  language  develops  in 
the  power  of  expressing  abstract  ideas  true  poetry  becomes 
less  natural  or  less  possible.  True  poetry,  arising  from  the 
pure  poetic  wish,  only  becomes  more  clearly  distinguished 
from  accidental  poetry,  arising  from  the  quest  of  informa- 
tion. It  is  just  as  possible  to  specify,  it  is  just  as  possible 
to  symbohze,  as  it  ever  was.  Indeed,  the  resources  for 
symbolism  are  richer  than  ever,  for  one  abstract  idea  can 
now  stand  for  another,  or  for  a  concrete  thing.  Only  it  is 
not  so  often  necessary,  and  so  the  power  is  less  cultivated 
among  practical  people.    Poetry  is  left  for  the  truly  poetic. 


144        ENJOYMENT  OF  POETRY 

"The  celebrated  Abderrahman,  son  of  Hissdn,  having, 
when  a  child,  been  stung  by  a  wasp,  the  insect  being  one 
he  did  not  recognize,  he  ran  to  his  father,  crying  out  that 
'he  had  been  wounded  by  a  creature  spotted  with  yellow 
and  white,  like  the  border  of  his  vest.'  On  hearing  these 
words  uttered  in  a  measure  of  Arabian  verse,  as  elegant  as 
natural,  Hiss&n  became  aware  of  his  son's  genius  for 
poetry." 

To  attribute  to  it  the  origin  of  great  poetry,  is 
paying  too  high  a  compliment  even  to  so  valuable 
a  thing  as  ignorance.  But  that  there  is  a  certain 
antithesis  between  poetry  and  general  knowledge, 
and  that  poetry  exists  either  before  that  is  acquired 
or  after  it  is  surmounted,  let  us  gladly  acknowl- 
edge. Leaving  out  the  accident  of  metre,  we  could 
discover  these  origins  of  poetry  every  day  in  the 
kindergarten.  A  little  boy  is  trying  to  guess  the 
name  of  his  teacher's  friend,  and  not  having  in  his 
mind  the  name  of  the  general  concept  first,  he  asks, 
"What  is  the  letter  that  hves  on  the  edge  of  it?" 
Another  conveys  his  abstract  notion  of  height  in 
the  words,  "Nearest  the  sky." 

We  shall  not  impugn  the  genuineness  of  the 
poetry  of  children,  nor  that  purity  of  their  poetic 
love  which  we  have  insisted  upon,  we  shall  but 
strengthen  the  force  of  that  insistence,  if  we  also 
acknowledge  that  their  poetry  of  ideas  is  fre- 
quently but  a  happy  incident  of  ignorance.  We 
might  call  it  necessary  poetry.    The  most  prac- 


REALIZATION  OF  IDEAS         145 

tical  adults  are  driven  to  it  when  by  a  reversal  of 
circumstances,  the  general  name  being  given,  they 
are  called  upon  to  explain  its  meaning  to  one  who 
is  still  in  the  primitive  condition.  They  have 
either  to  recall  particulars  or  to  employ  symbols. 
There  is  no  escaping  the  picturesque.  I  find  this 
memorandum  of  a  bit  of  such  instruction  in  the 
early  diary  of  Helen  Keller: 

"Nancy  was  cross.    Cross  is  cry  and  kick." 

Now,  if  we  could  arrange  so  that  all  the  children 
of  the  world  should  become  teachers  of  the  adults, 
teUing  them  how  to  turn  their  talking  into  poetry, 
we  should  find  exactly  such  memoranda  in  the 
note-books  of  the  pupils.  They  would  be  taught 
that,  "Cross  is  cry  and  kick"  But  in  language, 
as  in  life,  the  prejudice  prevails  that  instruction 
should  pass  in  the  other  direction.  The  jewels  of 
childhood's  utterance  are  adventitious;  the  chief 
end  of  man  is  to  acquire  sagacity  in  the  use  of 
general  concepts;  his  chief  end  is  to  be  sensible 
or  scientific. 

In  scientific  thinking,  we  trim  away  from  every 
experience  all  that  makes  it  individual  and  aston- 
ishing, in  order  that  we  may  give  it  a  common 
name  and  establish  it  in  a  familiar  class.  Science 
deals  with  each  reality  as  city  people  deal  with  a 
merchant,  neglecting  for  a  supreme  expedience 


146        ENJOYMENT  OF  POETRY 

all  that  is  of  unique  and  immediate  value  in  the 
relation  established.  It  regards  only  the  same- 
ness of  things.  In  books  of  science  we  get  no 
taste  of  a  particular  existence,  but  things  hav- 
ing some  important  similarity  are  referred  to  as 
though  they  were  all  exactly  alike,  and  by  a  word 
stripped  of  every  appropriateness  to  their  nature, 
stripped  of  all  individual  quality  whatever,  save 
what  is  essential  to  distinguish  it  from  other 
words.  The  culmination  of  this  process  is  to 
abandon  words  altogether,  as  savoring  too  much 
of  a  reahty,  and  let  a  stand  for  one  concept,  and  h 
for  another.  Algebra  is  the  extreme  antithesis  of 
poetry — so  complete  in  its  practical  ideaHsm  that 
the  real  existence  of  various  things  is  not  even 
intimated  as  possible,  but  we  deal  only  with  terms 
and  their  relations  in  the  mind,  the  last  vestige  of 
poetry  sucked  out  of  them.  This  is  the  true  end 
and  climax,  not  only  of  what  we  call  pure  science, 
but  of  that  abstract  intellectuality  which  the  phi- 
losopher praises.  It  is  an  idealization  of  the  prac- 
tical uniformities  of  experience — a  process  which 
advances  with  such  marvellous  rapidity,  especially 
in  the  absence  of  experience,  that  if  we  remain  in 
our  studies,  we  can  be  led  to  believe  that  all  the 
world  may  one  day  be  summed  up  in  a  single 
formula,  and  the  perfection  of  science  achieved. 
By  that  time  we  shall  need  to  remember  that 


REALIZATION  OF  IDEAS         147 

the  world  does  not  exist  in  the  abstract,  nor  in  gen- 
eral, nor  in  any  classification,  but  in  concrete  and 
heterogeneous  detail.  The  poet  reminds  us  of 
this.  Poetry  is  a  countryman,  and  greets  every 
experience  by  its  own  name.  Books  of  poetry,  no 
matter  how  abstract  or  general  the  ideas  they  con- 
vey, are  filled  with  presences.  Things  are  made 
to  appear  before  us  in  rich  multiplicity,  and  by 
words  cunningly  apposite  to  their  unique  char- 
acters, amid  which  the  general  meaning  must  find 
expression  as  it  can.  And  no  matter  what  that 
meaning  may  be,  no  matter  how  intellectual  or 
how  scientific  his  thesis,  the  poet  is  by  his  very 
speech  engaged  in  exploiting  against  the  spirit  of 
science  the  varieties  of  the  worid.  And  as  the 
extreme  of  science  is  the  vanishing  up  of  all  gen- 
eralization in  a  single  truth,  so  the  extreme  of 
poetry  is  to  descend  from  the  generality  proper  to 
the  very  existence  of  language,  and  engage  in  the 
diversities  of  Hfe.  Poetry  ushers  us  out  of  the 
library.    It  is  a  gesture  toward  the  world. 

And  thus  it  is  that,  although  primitive,  poetry 
is  also  divine.  It  is  a  redeemer  of  the  mind  from 
the  serious  madness  of  abstraction.  It  is  "the 
breath  and  finer  spirit  of  all  knowledge,"  as 
Wordsworth  said;  it  is  "the  tuft  and  final  applause 
of  science,"  as  Whitman  said;  not  because  it  goes 
still  higher  up  into  the  air  than  science  and  knowl- 


148        ENJOYjVIENT  OF  POETRY 

edge,  but  because  it  carries  science  and  knowledge 
continually  back  into  the  specific  realities  out  of 
which  they  arose,  and  whose  illumination  is  their 
culminating  function. 

And  yet  this,  too,  we  should  remember — lest  we 
be  as  fooUsh  as  the  fools  of  science — that  abstract 
ideas  themselves  exist,  and  are  among  the  realities 
of  experience.  The  reaUzation  of  ideas  is  a  part 
of  the  adventure  of  being.  And  a  poet  dwells 
upon  the  symbohc  image,  not  merely  because  it  is 
warmer  than  the  idea,  but  also  because  it  is  the 
essence  of  the  idea  in  so  far  as  that  has  any  sub- 
stantive existence.  The  meaning  is  transitive, 
it  is  an  act  of  the  mind;  there  is  no  pausing  upon 
it  alone.  But  the  image  in  which  it  dwells,  and 
which  it  hallows  with  new  feehngs  that  are  oflF- 
spring  of  the  power  of  generalization — ^that  is  a 
thing  that  can  be  raised  up,  and  seen,  and  dwelt 
upon  for  its  own  sake.  Through  that,  and 
through  that  alone,  the  poet  can  arrest  and 
entertain  a  thought. 

"Now,  while  the  birds  thus  sing  a  joyous  song, 
And  while  the  young  Iambs  bound 
As  to  the  tabor's  sound, 
To  me  alone  there  came  a  thought  of  grief: 


''Our  birth  is  but  a  sleep  and  a  forgetting: 
The  Soul  that  rises  'wath  us,  our  life's  Star, 


REALIZATION  OF  IDEAS  149 

Hath  had  elsewhere  its  setting, 

And  Cometh  from  afar: 
Not  in  entire  f orgetfulness, 
And  not  in  utter  nakedness, 
But  trailing  clouds  of  glory  do  we  come 

From  God,  who  is  our  home." 

This  was  not  a  new  thought,  nor  was  the  proof 
offered  of  it  convincing  even  in  its  own  day;  but  it 
was  the  new  realization  of  a  thought  as  old  as 
man,  and  dear  to  him.  It  was  the  bringing  down 
of  abstract  immortality  into  the  world  of  things 
and  passions  where  it  might  be  touched  and  felt. 
The  day  was  long  gone  by  when  a  philosopher 
could  astonish  men  with  the  idea  that  our  mind 
in  childhood  brings  proof  of  some  migration  from  a 
higher  sphere.  Plato  thought  in  a  far  more  sci- 
entific way  of  this.  But  the  day  was  not  gone  by 
and  never  will  be,  when  a  poet  could  astonish  us 
with  the  vision  of  this  thought  in  robes  of  color 
and  emotion. 

"Trailing  clouds  of  glory  do  we  cornel" 

We  consider  such  symbolic  or  visionary  thinking 
to  be  very  rare,  and  that  a  special  star  attends  the 
birth  of  a  poet.  But  no  doubt  these  fires  of 
imagery  play  in  the  firmament  of  every  mind.  It 
is  not  without  initial  effort  that  we  learn  to  disre- 
gard them.  Present  to  your  mind,  if  you  can, 
some  naked  meaning.    Let  it  be  that  contained 


150        ENJOYIVIENT  OF  POETRY 

in  the  word  junction.  Unless  you  are  content 
with  the  mere  sound  or  appearance  of  the  word 
itself  as  a  bearer  of  the  meaning,  you  will  find  in 
your  imagination  a  vague  picture  of  two  things 
coming  together,  two  undefined  objects  whose  very 
lack  of  definition  shall  represent  the  generality  of 
the  idea.  And  if  your  mind  is  feverish,  or  elec- 
tric with  passion,  the  picture  will  be  more  defined. 
There  will  even  appear  a  particular  instance  (per- 
haps that  one  in  which  you  first  learned  the  word), 
and  this  will  stand  for  junction  in  the  abstract, 
until  a  new  concrete  is  given  by  the  completion 
of  a  sentence.  "Let  there  be  a  junction  between 
your  ideals  and  your  daily  life."  Yet  even  here 
we  are  at  a  loss  to  attain  a  clear  image,  for  the 
words  ideal,  and  daily  life,  are  also  highly  general. 
Something  above  reaches  down  upon  something 
below,  something  light  touches  upon  something 
drab-colored,  or  a  vagueness  from  heaven  swims 
over  the  picture  of  ourselves  in  practical  costume 
— the  difference  depending  upon  how  we  have 
learned  and  used  the  word  ideal,  and  the  word 
junction,  and  the  words  daily  life.  Whatever  form 
it  takes,  it  is  inevitably  vague  and  unemerging — 
unsatisfying,  because  it  leaves  us  all  of  the  pic- 
torial work  to  do.  It  is  "  prosaic."  "  Hitch  your 
wagon  to  a  star" — that  is  poetic.  It  gleams  into 
the  mind,  scorning  all  three  of  those  old  words 


REALIZATION  OF  IDEAS  151 

that  were  obscure  and  not  compatible  with  each 
other,  putting  in  their  place  one  visual  experience 
which  abides.  Poetry  but  dwells  upon  and  per- 
fects that  significant  imagery  which  is  the  natural 
instrument  of  all  thinking.  It  perfects  the  in- 
dividual nature  of  the  idea. 

And  the  poignancy  of  an  idea  so  perfected  is 
usually  greatest  when  the  image  stands  alone, 
when  the  meaning  in  its  more  abstract  form  is 
not  expressed.  We  are  given  only  the  specific 
and  concrete,  yet  with  some  shadowed  intima- 
tion that  it  contains  more  than  itself. 

"The  Moving  Finger  writes;  and,  having  writ. 
Moves  on:  nor  all  your  Piety  nor  Wit 
Shall  lure  it  back  to  cancel  half  a  Line, 
Nor  all  your  Tears  wash  out  a  Word  of  it." 

We  cross  the  bridge  of  comparison  by  our- 
selves, and  hardly  with  words.  We  only  inwardly 
feel  that  we  have  arrived  in  the  presence  of  an 
idea.  And  so  unique  and  magical  is  this,  the  ex- 
perience through  speech  of  what  is  unspoken,  so 
wonderfully  does  it  float  and  Hnger  through  the 
Hues  of  all  ideal  poetry,  that  it  has  seemed  to  those 
who  love  above  all  things  a  miracle  to  be  a  kind 
of  essence  of  the  poetic  quahty.  They,  too,  have 
wished  to  confine  all  poetry  within  the  limits  of 
their  love.  "Suggestion" — "intimation" — "nu- 
ance"— "meaning,"  in  the  occult  sense — are  what 


152         ENJOYMENT  OF  POETRY 

they  wait  for,  and  sail  over  the  great  seas  of  open 
poetry  thinking  they  are  but  a  passage-way  for 
these  vessels  of  mystery. 

Let  us  acknowledge  that  though  poetry  is  far 
wider  and  far  more  than  they  believe,  yet  this  is 
among  the  sublimest  of  her  powers.  For  we  are 
sometimes  led  by  her  most  fine  suggestions,  not 
only  into  the  presence  of  ideas,  but  into  the  pres- 
ence of  what  is  beyond  any  idea.  We  are  made 
to  apprehend  the  being  of  things  the  mind  cannot 
contain.  In  trigonometry,  because  we  know  the 
relation  between  two  hues,  we  can  measure  the  one 
which  is  beyond  the  span  of  our  instruments,  and 
we  nail  our  diagrams  to  the  stars;  and  in  poetry, 
likewise,  when  we  have  experienced  the  reference 
of  a  present  image  to  absent  ones,  we  are  awake  to 
those  references  which  pass  beyond  our  minds,  and 
we  catch  them  on  their  way  to  the  images  that 
are  eternally  absent.  There  is  poetry  that  runs 
along  the  verge  of  infinity.  Repeatedly  we  span 
the  universe  by  the  juxtaposition  of  words,  and 
as  the  architecture  of  these  successive  visions  is 
piled  before  us,  we  are  led  almost  to  expect  a  reve- 
lation of  the  unseen.  This  power  has  hung  the  veil 
of  sacredness  upon  the  name  of  poetry — that  with 
these  written  syllables  it  can  so  bring  over  us  the 
nearness  of  infinite  and  universal  being. 

Some  shadow  of  this  enduring  wonder  must 


REALIZATION  OF  IDEAS  153 

have  dwelt  above  all  those  bright  gods  of  Greece, 
who  were  the  children  of  the  love  of  pure  ideas. 
ReaUzations  in  that  warmest  symbol,  personaHty, 
of  the  ideas  of  health,  and  courage,  and  wisdom, 
and  some  unnamable  great  beauty  that  was  sup- 
posed to  lie  beyond  them  all — they  dwelt  like 
light  among  the  citizens  of  Athens.  And  in  the 
darkness  of  dechning  faith  in  their  true  being, 
there  arose  one  who  declared  that  though  they 
fade,  the  symbols  fade,  the  ideas  abide  forever  and 
are  real.  Health  and  beauty  and  lightness,  these 
abstract  things,  exist  in  perfection  and  can  be 
seen,  if  not  with  the  sensual  eye,  yet  with  the  eye 
of  the  mind.  So  Plato*s  evening  prayer  was  a 
prayer  not  to  the  deities,  not  to  the  beautiful  and 
good,  but  to  beauty  and  goodness.  He  sought  to 
substitute  the  image  of  a  word  with  its  meaning, 
for  the  image  of  a  god  with  his  meaning,  and  so 
preserve  for  a  little  longer  the  high-hearted  joys 
of  a  young  religion.  But  he  too  failed,  and  died. 
The  gods  must  all  perish  and  be  lost  to  us,  until 
we  have  grown  old  enough  in  science  to  return  to 
them  and  know  that  they  are  poetry,  the  sym- 
bols of  ideas  and  of  a  universal  mystery. 


CHAPTER  Xn 

POETRY  ITSELF 

Poetry  is  not  only  a  realization  of  things,  but 
it  is  also  a  thing  itself.  It  contains  present  ele- 
xments  to  realize  and  make  perfect,  or  make  poig- 
nant, for  their  own  sake.  Perhaps  the  finest  of 
all  these  elements,  the  most  magnetic  to  those 
who  love  life,  is  a  great  conflict.  The  sponta- 
neous pulse  of  the  speech  is  fighting  the  restraint 
of  rhythm  perpetually,  and  in  the  clash  both 
are  exalted.  In  some  poems  the  estabhshed 
rhythm  triumphs  often;  in  others  it  is  often 
wrecked.  And  they  who  value  generality  and 
law  for  their  own  sake,  will  favor  the  first  kind  of 
poems,  and  they  who  value  the  general  law  only 
as  an  opportunity  for  individual  rebellion,  will 
favor  the  second  kind.  This  difference  will  al- 
ways be.  But  for  either  of  them  to  get  the  real 
food  for  his  taste,  it  is  necessary  that  both  the 
rhythm  and  the  spontaneous  pulse  should  exist, 
that  they  should  exist  distinctly,  that  they  should 
continue  in  that  state  of  warring  equilibrium  which 
seems  to  define  the  very  nature  of  existence. 
Those  who  love  liberty  will  enjoy  this  conflict 
154 


POETRY  ITSELF  166 

as  it  fares  in  the  blank  verse  of  Shakespeare's  ma- 
ture years;  those  who  love  the  established  order 
will  be  better  pleased  with  Tennyson.  But  even 
Tennyson  cannot  allow  the  order  to  prevail  for 
many  lines  unbroken,  as  a  quotation  will  reveal. 

**So  saying,  from  the  ruin'd  shrine  he  stept 
And  in  the  moon  athwart  the  place  of  tombs, 
Where  lay  the  mighty  bones  of  ancient  men, 
Old  knights,  and  over  them  the  sea-wind  sang 
Shrill,  chill,  with  flakes  of  foam.    He,  stepping  dowD 
By  zig-zag  paths,  and  juts  of  pointed  rock. 
Came  on  the  shining  levels  of  the  lake. 

There  drew  he  forth  the  brand  Excalibur, 
And  o'er  him,  drawing  it,  the  winter  moon, 
Brightening  the  skirts  of  a  long  cloud,  ran  forth 
And  sparkled  keen  with  frost  against  the  hilt " 

There  are  three  variances  in  these  lines  against 
the  formal  rhythm: 


and 
and 


"Shrill,  chill,  with  flakes  of  foam," 
'Brightening  the  skirts  of  a  long  cloud," 
'Came  on  the  shining  levels  of  the  lake." 


And  one  might  insert  for  brightening  the  skirts  of  a 
long  cloud,  the  words,  illumining  the  skirts  of  trail' 
ing  cloud,  and  for  shrill,  chill,  the  words  all  shrill, 
and  for  came  on,  the  word  beheld,  which  would 
restore  the  rhythm  to  complete  regularity;  and 
by  so  mutilating  a  perfect  thing  he  might  see,  if 


156         ENJOYMENT  OF  POETRY 

he  cared  to,  how  greatly  its  perfection  depends 
upon  a  conflict. 
Another  element  of  poetry,  as  a  thing  itself, 
yis  that  melody  of  letters  on  the  lips  and  tongue 
— a  melody  less  high  and  startling  perhaps,  but 
just  as  clear  and  eminent  to  those  whose  senses 
can  discriminate  with  fineness  as  the  clang  of  horns 
and  cymbals.  I  call  it  melody  because  it  gives 
no  sounds  in  unison,  but  otherwise  it  has  upon 
an  elfin  scale  the  whole  diversity  of  symphonic 
music.  It  has  a  cadence  that  is  almost  formal 
melody;  it  has  the  change  of  tempo  and  intensity; 
it  has  a  lineal  euphony  and  dissonance  of  tonal 
quahties.  Each  vowel  is  an  instrument,  and  each 
consonant  a  kind  of  stop.  And  all  these  stops 
and  instruments  can  be  conjoined  in  myriads  of 
the  ways  of  pleasing  that  we  call  beauty — more 
ways,  indeed,  than  those  of  instrumental  music. 
For  it  is  not  to  the  ear  only,  but  to  the  sen- 
tient organs  of  articulation,  and  even  to  the  eye, 
that  the  lettered  syllables  of  poetry  give  music. 
Phrases,  lines,  and  stanzas  have  each  a  distinct 
being,  and  all  these  beings  can  be  built  up  together 
congruously  into  an  architectural  wonder. 

In  modern  days,  indeed,  this  building  up  of 
vocal  wonders  has  become  a  great  part  of  the  art 
of  writing  poetry.  Tennyson  gave  much  of  his 
creative  attention  to  it.    And   it  was  truly  a 


POETRY  ITSELF  157 

wonder  that  he  built— a  supremely  soft,  mellifluous 
wonder — 

"Music  that  gentlier  on  the  spuit  lies, 
Than  tired  eyelids  upon  tired  eyes." 

Sidney  Lanier  also  loved  this  art,  and  wrote  a 
science  of  it,  and  even  exceeded  Tennyson,  if  not 
in  the  melting  away,  at  least  in  the  intense  sweet- 
ness of  the  linking  of  his  syllables.  They  hardly 
allow  themselves  to  be  forgotten,  they  fall  so  vel- 
vetly  out  of  the  mouth  with  rhyme,  aUiteration, 
assonance,  and  every  shade  of  conscious  euphony. 
But  of  all  the  builders  of  the  lingual  melody, 
Edgar  Allan  Poe  seems  to  have  given  it  the  least 
divided  regard,  and  in  the  few  perfected  poems 
that  he  made,  brought  it  to  an  extreme  of  Hmpid 
fluidity. 

"At  midnight,  in  the  month  of  June, 
I  stand  beneath  the  mystic  moon. 
An  opiate  vapor,  dewy,  dim, 
Exhales  from  out  her  golden  rim. 
And,  softly  dripping,  drop  by  drop, 
Upon  the  quiet  mountain  top. 
Steals  drowsily  and  musically 
Into  the  universal  valley. 
The  rosemary  nods  upon  the  grave; 
The  lily  lolls  upon  the  wave; 
Wrapping  the  fog  about  its  breast. 
The  ruin  moulders  into  rest; 
Looking  like  Lethe,  seel  the  lake 
A  conscious  slumber  seems  to  take. 


158         ENJOYMENT  OF  POETRY  ' 

And  would  not,  for  the  world,  awake. 
All  Beauty  sleeps  I — and  lol  where  lies 
Irene,  with  her  Destinies  I" 

Rudyard  Kipling  injected  into  this  art  a  more 
heroic  ring.  His  syllables  raise  a  magnificent 
clangor  that  puts  health  into  the  pulse,  and  their 
sounding  marks  quite  a  crisis  in  the  history  of  the 
music  of  English  letters.  "The  ringing,  stinging 
spindrift,  and  fulmar  flying  free!"  seem  hardly  of 
the  same  genus  as  "The  velvet  violet  cushions," 
and  "The  silken,  sad,  uncertain  rustling  of  each 
purple  curtain."  Yet  after  all  they  are  only  a 
variation  of  taste  in  the  same  field  of  interest. 
They  direct  the  attention,  more  or  less  explicitly, 
as  Tennyson  so  often  did,  to  the  vocal  materials 
of  verse. 

Poetry  contains  more  essence  of  its  own,  how- 
ever, than  syllables  and  letters,  or  the  wonders 
yffiade  of  them.  It  contains  words.  And  of  all 
the  jewels  of  Africa  there  is  no  one  that  can  sur- 
pass, in  concentration  of  intense  being,  a  unique 
word.  Suspend  before  the  mind,  but  only  for  a 
moment  lest  its  spirit  flee,  a  word — the  word 
wraith,  or  vigil,  or  night-pandering.  Ingot,  water- 
nixy,  preen,  simoom — are  they  not  wonderful  creat- 
ures? They  bear  all  the  charmed  diversities  of 
nature  in  a  faery  world.  No  poet  ever  lived,  no 
vivid-minded  child,  but  loved  to  know  them. 


POETRY  ITSELF  159 

And  knowing  them — or  shall  we  call  it  tasting, 
feeHng  of  them,  loving  to  build  them  also  into 
wonders — has  been  a  second  great  part  of  the  art 
of  poetry  in  modern  days.  Consider,  for  example, 
those  lines  "To  a  Snow-flake,"  by  Francis  Thomp- 
son. Consider  them,  not  because  they  lack  all 
other  poetry,  but  because  they  lack  all  other  great- 
ness in  poetry,  than  the  greatness  of  a  creation  in 
the  flavors  of  words.  A  sensuous  if  delicate  cloud 
is  hung  before  us,  hiding  the  snow-flake,  or  even 
the  God,  we  may  have  thought  of,  but  hiding 
it  in  order  to  ravish  us  away  with  a  mystery 
of  names.  As  a  builder  of  these  magic  clouds, 
dwelling  upon  them  forever,  and  even  to  the  ruin 
of  his  melody  and  rhythm,  Francis  Thompson  has 
hardly  been  excelled. 

TO  A  SNOW-FLAKE 

"What  heart  could  have  thought  you?— 
Past  our  devisal 
(A  filigree  petal!) 
Fashioned  so  purely, 
Fragilely,  surely, 
From  what  Paradisal 
Imagineless  metal, 
Too  costly  for  cost? 
Who  hammered  you,  wrought  you. 
From  argentine  vapor? — 
*God  was  my  shaper. 
Passing  surmisal. 
He  hanunered,  He  wrought  me. 


160         ENJOYMENT  OF  POETRY 

From  curled  silver  vapor, 

To  lust  of  his  mind : — 

Thou  could*  St  not  have  thought  me  I 

So  purely,  so  palely, 

Tinily,  surely, 

Mightily,  frailly, 

Insculped  and  embossed. 

With  his  hammer  of  mind, 

And  his  graver  of  frost.' " 

The  poem  is  so  moving,  and  yet  withal  so  inevi- 
table— so  superior  in  that  quality  to  others  in  its 
volume — that  we  might  almost  retract  what  we 
said  of  it.  We  might  say,  for  one  thing,  that 
there  is  a  kinship  between  the  sensible  nature  of 
its  words  and  of  the  thing  they  speak  of.  Both 
do  curl  and  flutter,  even  if  not  in  the  same  un- 
conscious purity.  And  in  so  far  as  that  is  true, 
there  is  a  higher  poetry  than  lies  in  the  mere  reali- 
zation of  words.  It  is  a  poetry  upon  the  border- 
land between  word-conjuring  and  the  imaginative 
realization  of  things — a  special  poetry  to  which 
the  text-books  have  given  the  longest  and  most 
impoetic  name  of  onomatopceia. 

This  p)oetry  contains  similarity,  but  it  is  a  sim- 
ilarity not  between  two  things  that  are  named, 
but  between  a  thing  and  the  very  naming  of  it. 
Buzz,  bang,  slap,  grumble,  are  words  used  to  illus- 
trate this,  and  they  are  always  supplemented  by 
these  long-suffering  lines  of  Tennyson: 


POETRY  ITSELF  161 

"The  moan  of  doves  in  immemorial  elms, 
And  murmm'ing  of  innumerable  bees." 

No  book  about  poetry  is  acceptable  without  a 
quotation  of  these  lines;  and  few  books  about 
poetry  fail  to  convey  an  indistinct  impression 
that  they  contain  the  real,  or  at  least  the  only 
seizable,  quintessence  of  poetic  language.  This 
is  unfortunate,  because  the  lines  are  obviously 
unusual  and  had  to  be  sought  after,  and  we  should 
not  care  to  hear  a  great  many  Hke  them  even  if 
we  could.  But,  unfortunate  though  it  is,  it  is  the 
nearest  that  the  text-books  ever  come  to  telling 
the  truth  about  poetic  language.  It  is  a  real 
intuition  of  the  truth,  and  far  less  misleading  than 
what  they  have  to  say  about  "figures  of  speech" 
in  general. 

The  reason  why  the  text-books  talk  about 
onomatopoeia  as  though  it  were  the  quintessence 
of  poetry,  is  that  their  authors  understand  its 
poetic  value,  but  they  do  not  understand  the 
poetic  value  of  the  other  figures.  They  perceive, 
in  an  obscure  way,  that  making  an  absent  experi- 
ence vivid  to  the  mind  is  the  very  magic  of  poetry. 
And  they  can  explain  to  themselves  how  an  imita- 
tive sound  makes  an  absent  thing  vivid.  It  is 
like  saying  "bow-wow"  for  baby  at  the  word  dog. 
But  how  the  choice  of  a  salient  detail,  or  the  com- 
parison of  one  absent  thing  with  another,  makes 


162        ENJOYMENT  OF  POETRY 

it  vivid  to  the  mind,  they  cannot  explain.  And 
so  they  pass  over  these  greater  acts  of  poetry 
somewhat  abstractedly,  as  we  have  seen,  and  they 
dwell  upon  this  small  incident  of  mimicry  and 
these  misfortunate  two  Hnes  of  Tennyson,  as 
though  they  were  a  kind  of  special  SiTchetype  for 
all  poetry,  and  were  achieved  by  a  supernatural 
union  of  the  poet  himself  with  the  objects  he 
loves.  But  we  need  only  glance  back  a  Httle 
way  in  the  same  poem  to  prove  to  ourselves  how 
much  more  utterly  lost  in  his  objects  a  poet  may 
become,  and  yet  make  no  sensible  imitation  what- 
ever. 

"But  cease  to  move  so  near  the  Heavens,  and  cease 
To  glide  a  sunbeam  by  the  blasted  Pine, 
To  sit  a  star  upon  the  sparkling  spire; 
And  come,  for  Love  is  of  the  valley,  come. 
For  Love  is  of  the  valley,  come  thou  down 
And  find  him;  by  the  happy  threshold,  he. 
Or  hand  in  hand  with  Plenty  in  the  maize. 
Or  red  with  spirted  purple  of  the  vats, 
Or  foxlike  in  the  vine;  nor  cares  to  walk 
With  Death  and  Morning  on  the  silver  horns,— 

**But  follow;  let  the  torrent  dance  thee  down 
To  find  him  in  the  valley;  let  the  wild 
Lean-headed  eagles  yelp  alone,  and  leave 
The  monstrous  ledges  there  to  slope,  and  spill 
Their  thousand  wreaths  of  dangling  water-smoke. 
That  like  a  broken  purpose  waste  in  air: 
So  waste  not  thou;  but  come;  for  all  the  vales 
Await  thee " 


POETRY  ITSELF  163 

The  language  of  Dante  held  people  in  so  great 
awe  that  a  tradition  arose,  and  has  survived  among 
the  credulous,  that  a  foreigner  can  understand  him 
to  some  extent  by  the  very  wailing  of  his  words 
— a  tradition  which  gives  more  credit  to  Dante 
in  its  folly,  than  it  would  if  it  were  true.  For 
how  should  a  man  descending  into  very  hell,  ex- 
periencing the  universal  horror  till  his  mind  was 
rabid  and  his  bones  were  gaunt — ^how  should  he 
be  attending  to  the  trick  of  juggling  some  eight 
thousand  words  until  they  mimicked  every  noise 
or  object  he  encountered?  It  is  pardonable  that 
we  should  speak  of  Dante  with  superstition,  for 
he  is  probably  the  only  man  that  ever  fully  went 
through  hell.  But  I  think  we  do  light  honor  to 
the  superhuman  genius  in  him  when  we  unite  it 
with  this  magic  of  the  languid  study.  We  unite 
it  with  such  achievements  as  Edgar  Allan  Poe's 
"Bells" — a  poem  which  shows  the  love  of  onomat- 
opoeia, and  word-tasting,  and  letter-music,  in  ex- 
treme and  almost  ludicrous  dominance  over  the 
motives  of  universal  poetry. 

"Hear  the  sledges  with  the  bells — 
Silver  bells  1 
What  a  world  of  merriment  their  melody  foretells! 
How  they  tinkle,  tinkle,  tinkle, 

In  the  icy  air  of  night! 
While  the  stars  that  oversprinkle 
All  the  heavens,  seem  to  twinkle 


164         ENJOYMENT  OF  POETRY 

With  a  crystalline  delight; 
Keeping  time,  time,  time, 
In  a  sort  of  Runic  rhyme. 
To  the  tintinnabulation  that  so  musically  wells 
From  the  bells,  bells,  bells,  bells, 

Bells,  beUs,  beUs— 
From  the  jingling  and  the  tinkling  of  the  bells." 

One  might  almost  regard  these  verses,  with 
"The  Raven,"  as  a  parody  upon  the  tendencies  of 
chamber-poets  in  the  modern  day — their  conse- 
cration of  the  sensuous  materials  of  language.  It 
is  but  a  step  beyond  them  in  affection  for  the  pal- 
pable, to  devote  the  energies  of  creation — as  at 
one  time  the  poets  of  Persia  did — to  beautiful  pen- 
manship, and  the  coloring  of  the  pages,  and  dust- 
ing them  with  Hve  perfumes. 

The  poets  of  the  world  have  not  been  domi- 
nated by  any  of  these  passions  of  the  writing-room. 
For  them  poetry  itself  is  an  experience  subor- 
dinate to  those  which  it  portrays.  They  have 
mastered  the  art  of  verbal  melody  much  as  they 
mastered  the  art  of  handwriting,  in  order  to  sub- 
ject it  utterly  to  the  service  of  the  imaginative 
reaHzation  of  life.  The  pleasure  in  their  syllables 
does  not  protest  itself;  the  perfection  of  their 
utterance  is  supreme,  but  it  is  in  the  truest  sense 
a  negative  perfection.  It  is  but  the  clear  medium 
through  which  a  greater  thing  continually  appears. 
/  Two  elements  belong  to  poetry  as  a  thing  itself, 


POETRY  ITSELF  165 

however,  upon  which  even  the  great  poets  have 
sometimes  concentrated  their  best  energy.  They 
are  the  form,  an  intellectual  element,  and  the 
unique  emotion  that  words  aloof  from  things  can 
sometimes  generate.  I  quote  for  illustration  of 
the  first  a  sonnet  whose  excellence,  whatever  ele- 
ments of  passion  it  may  hold,  is  not  separable 
from  its  totality.  The  passion  and  its  images  are 
wrought  together  on  a  rhythmic  pattern  into  a  high 
unity  that  becomes  a  being  for  the  intellect — a 
poem. 

"REMEMBER 

"Remember  me  when  I  am  gone  away. 
Gone  far  away  into  the  silent  land; 
When  you  can  no  more  hold  me  by  the  hand. 
Nor  I  half  turn  to  go  yet  turning  stay. 
Remember  me  when  no  more,  day  by  day. 
You  tell  me  of  our  future  that  you  planned: 
Only  remember  me;  you  understand. 
It  will  be  late  to  counsel  then  or  pray. 
Yet  if  you  should  forget  me  for  a  while 
And  afterwards  remember,  do  not  grieve; 
For  if  the  darkness  and  corruption  leave 
A  vestige  of  the  thoughts  that  once  I  had. 
Better  by  far  you  should  forget  and  smile 
Than  that  you  should  remember  and  be  sad." 

Thus  to  engender  without  loss  of  passion  or 
simplicity  a  perfect  form,  is  an  art  which  somehow 
stirs  in  us  a  greater  admiration  than  does  the  mere 
music  made  of  syllables.     It  is  at  least  a  more 


166        ENJOYMENT  OF  POETRY 

complete  creation.  A  poem  as  a  form  is  a  new 
thing  that  language  adds  outright  to  what  the 
world  contained. 

Perhaps  to  create  out  of  the  materials  of  life,  by 
recombining  them  with  names,  a  feeling  that  life 
itself  never  offered,  a  quaUty  of  passion  that  is  the 
poem's  own,  is  a  still  higher  art.  It  seems  both 
high  and  rare,  and  to  partake  of  the  divineness  of 
nature's  own  spontaneous  generation.  And  we 
need  not  wonder  if  those  who  dwell  too  much  in 
reading  and  too  little  in  the  world,  should  make 
a  kind  of  idol  of  this  power  and  almost  wish  to 
call  no  other  utterance  poetry. 

"I  saw  pale  kings,  and  princes  too, 
Pale  warriors,  death-pale  were  they  aU; 


"I  saw  their  starv'd  lips  in  the  gloam. 
With  horrid  warning  gapfed  wide, 
And  I  awoke  and  found  me  here 
On  the  cold  hillside. 

"And  this  is  why  I  sojourn  here 
Alone  and  palely  loitering, 
Though  the  sedge  is  withered  from  the  lake. 
And  no  birds  sing." 

An  echo  will  recall  the  spell  of  this  sad  ballad,  and 
remind  us  that  such  magical  emotions  are  indeed 
a  precious  gift  that  words  can  make  to  the  orig- 


POETRY  ITSELF  167 

inal  wealth  of  life.  They  are  at  least  a  crowning 
attribute  of  poetry  as  a  thing  itself.  And  blended 
with  all  poignancy  and  beauty  in  the  other  attri- 
butes we  have  too  crudely  analyzed  and  separated 
from  each  other,  they  can  easily  become  the  ob- 
ject of  supreme  poetic  love  in  days  when  art 
usurps  the  place  of  life.  They  are  a  culmination 
of  what  we  may  call  the  poetry  of  the  poet's 
chamber. 


CHAPTER  XIII 
TO  ENJOY  POETRY 

Of  all  things  poetry  is  most  unlike  deadness. 
It  is  unlike  ennui,  or  sophistication.  It  is  a  prop- 
erty of  the  alert  and  beating  hearts.  Those  who 
are  so  proud  that  they  cannot  enter  precipitately 
into  the  enterprise  of  being,  are  too  great  for 
poetry.  Poetry  is  unconditionally  upon  the  side 
of  life.  But  it  is  also  upon  the  side  of  variety  in 
life.  It  is  the  offspring  of  a  love  that  has  many 
eyes,  as  many  as  the  flowers  of  the  field.  There 
is  no  poetry  for  him  whose  look  is  straitened,  and 
his  heart  lives  but  to  the  satisfaction  of  a  single 
taste.    He  had  the  power  of  poetry  and  lost  it. 

Nor  variety  alone,  but  idleness  in  variety  per- 
tains to  the  poetic  life.  Greed,  anticipation,  or 
the  aspiration  to  achieve  may  branch  a  thousand 
ways.  Even  old  necessity  is  not  monotonous. 
But  poetry  cannot  flourish  where  these  things 
absorb  the  heart.  Realization  is  a  flower  of  lei- 
sure and  does  not  blossom  quickly.  It  is  a  flower 
of  the  mood  of  leisure,  and  that  in  these  days  is 
the  possession  of  a  few.  Among  the  well-to-do  it 
is  a  traditional  possession  of  women  only,  and  so 
168 


TO  ENJOY  POETRY  169 

poetry  has  there  grown  to  appear  feminine. 
Among  the  poor  it  is  unattainable  to  any  but  de- 
generates, or  the  best  rebels,  and  so  poetry  appears 
not  to  belong  there  at  all,  but  to  be  almost  an 
exclusive  pleasure  of  those  whom  we  call  culti- 
vated. Poetry  has  grown  aristocratic.  It  looks 
into  the  future  for  its  golden  age,  the  age  when  it 
will  again  be  loved  by  many  kinds  of  people,  and 
rise  to  its  heights  upon  a  wide  foundation.  They 
who  cherish  hopes  of  poetry  will,  therefore,  do 
well  to  favor  in  their  day  every  assault  of  labor 
upon  the  monopoly  of  leisure  by  a  few.  They  will 
be  ready  for  a  drastic  re-distribution  of  the  idle 
hours. 

Even  a  more  heroic  change  they  will  have  to 
see,  if  poetry  is  to  prosper  in  those  hours.  For 
with  the  achievement  of  leisure  as  it  is  to-day, 
there  spreads  over  the  whole  nature  of  man  that 
baleful  constraint,  the  ideal  of  respectability. 
And  that  is  a  more  sure  destroyer  of  poetry,  than 
even  necessity  or  the  absorbing  ambition  that  is 
genuine.  The  privilege  of  maintaining  a  refined 
insulation  from  real  contacts  with  the  matter  of 
Kfe  being  possible  only  to  the  wealthy,  it  becomes 
the  accepted  token  of  wealth,  and  a  stern  require- 
ment to  those  whose  judgments  of  merit  are 
determined  by  a  pecuniary  standard.  They  wrap 
themselves  in  fabrics  and  fine  manners.    They 


170         ENJOYMENT  OF  POETRY 

incase  themselves  in  forms.  They  touch  nothing 
to  the  quick.  They  are  even  more  effectually  sun- 
dered from  the  poetry  of  experience  than  those 
considered  less  fortunate  who  are  occupied  with  a 
genuine  problem  of  self-preservation.  For  they, 
when  they  do  discover  some  hour  of  contempla- 
tion, look  straight  into  the  face  of  the  world. 
They  taste  the  sorrows  at  least.  But  these  others 
dwell  in  their  mansions  of  great  aspect  as  in  the 
tomb,  forbidden  by  their  ideal  the  realization  even 
of  the  tragedy  of  their  own  deadness.  I  walk  from 
Central  Park  eastward,  and  as  I  draw  near  to 
those  quarters  where  poverty  has  kept  off  this 
malady,  I  draw  big  breaths  again,  as  if  I  had  issued 
out  of  a  polished  museum  wherein  were  kept  pack- 
ages of  human  remains. 

What  wonder  if  the  poets,  the  lovers  of  the 
sting  of  life,  have  revolted  against  this  voluntary 
bUght.  A  noble  flavor  of  disreputability  clings 
about  the  greatest  of  them.  Nor  does  comedy 
err  in  presenting  their  type  as  clad  in  a  rolling 
collar,  a  flowing  tie,  or  some  other  symbol  of  rebel- 
lion against  the  demands  of  respectable  opinion. 
They  do  not  love  these  peculiarities  for  themselves 
alone,  but  they  love  them  for  the  declaration  that 
they  make  of  public  liberty  for  individual  exist- 
ence. 

It  is  true  that  this  revolt  in  manners  cannot 


TO  ENJOY  POETRY  171 

always  be  brought  without  a  loss  of  that  uncon- 
sciousness of  self  which  is  so  justly  valued.  But 
this  does  not  prove  that  the  revolt  arose  from  such 
consciousness;  it  proves  the  all-poisoning  power 
of  the  ideal  revolted  against.  It  but  extends  to 
the  man  who  defies  it  a  further  challenge.  His 
defiance  will  not  weaken,  because  it  is  grounded 
in  the  nature  of  his  will.  But  the  strange  power 
of  that  ideal  is  grounded  in  a  condition  of  extreme 
economic  rivalry,  and  will  diminish  with  a  change 
in  this  condition.  With  a  wiser  distribution,  not 
of  leisure  only,  but  of  wealth,  its  tyranny,  which 
is  pecuniary  at  heart,  will  there  rot.  And  a  cer- 
tain naturalness  without  respectability,  the  rarest 
jewel  of  our  present  leisure,  will  then  be  more 
abundant. 

It  would  not  be  true,  perhaps,  to  attribute  all 
the  unexpectedness  of  the  poetic  to  their  revolt 
against  the  anxiety  or  insulation  of  being  respect- 
able. For  there  is  a  certain  contrariety  between 
custom  itself,  whatever  be  the  heart  of  it,  and 
poetry.  There  is  truth  in  the  high  opinion  that  in 
so  far  as  a  man  conforms,  he  ceases  to  exist.  He 
fails  to  launch  that  separate  orbit  into  the  sphere 
of  being  which  the  luck  of  birth  allowed  him. 
And,  therefore,  a  divergence  for  its  own  sake  from 
the  common  course  receives  the  poet's  sanction. 
To  aspire  forever  toward  the  general  type  is — as 


172         ENJOYMENT  OF  POETRY 

even  Plato  in  his  world  of  thought  acknowledged 
— a  kind  of  death  for  the  individual.  The  meas- 
ure of  experience  is  all  too  short  for  those  who 
love  it. 

And  if  custom,  or  the  typical,  appears  to  them  a 
kind  of  death,  how  much  the  more  does  indi\adual 
habit,  or  the  washing  out  of  all  acute  impressions 
through  mere  repetition.  This  they  cannot  bear. 
They  cannot  settle  down  to  any  daily  round  what- 
ever— to  stay  at  home,  or  leaving  home  to  cut 
always  across  the  same  meadow.  They  make 
new  paths  at  every  turn.  They  shun  the  clutch 
of  habit  as  a  wild  hawk  shuns  the  cage,  knowing 
that  it  has  more  power  than  its  bars.  It  has  the 
power  of  conquering  their  wish  to  leave  it.  And 
here  that  other  popular  or  comic  apprehending  of 
the  poet's  nature — that  he  is  a  little  unrehable — 
finds  also  a  measure  of  justification.  He  is  not 
the  best  of  neighbors,  because  you  can  never  tell 
quite  where  to  find  him,  or  what  you  may  expect 
of  him  when  found.  He  is  unrehable  only  in  so 
far  as  you  commit  your  fortunes  rashly  to  the 
hope  of  his  repeating  yesterday  to-day.  That 
mode  of  hving,  in  so  far  as  mortal  tissue  and  its 
preservation  will  allow,  he  has  kept  clear  of. 
And  in  this  way,  as  well  as  in  the  way  of  unsophis- 
tication,  and  variety,  and  idleness,  and  the  dis- 
reputable, and  the  uncustomary,  he  has  made  the 


TO  ENJOY  POETRY  173 

return  to  childhood.  He  has  preserved  the  poetry 
of  life. 

The  poetry  of  language  is  secondary  to  that. 
It  will  be  found,  mixed  often  with  humor,  on  the 
tongues  of  those  we  have  described;  its  best  en- 
joyment will  be  known  to  them.  And  yet  it  is  a 
different  art,  and  there  are  further  requisites  of 
its  enjoyment.  The  first  and  greatest  of  them  is 
that  we  should  know  its  character,  and  estimate 
it  as  itself.  All  lively  things  of  nature,  from  the 
planets  to  ourselves  so  busy  on  them,  are  forever 
forward-looking,  and  unconsciously  we  draw  all 
?iew  things  to  this  company,  and  judge  them  as 
they  further  or  retard  its  progress.  Far  more 
than  half  our  judgments,  half  our  conscious  being, 
half  our  speaking,  is  directed  toward  the  future, 
finds  its  sanction  there.  And  poetry  is  exactly 
otherwise.  It  aims  to  step  aside  from,  and  to 
stem,  that  everlasting  process  with  a  strong  abid- 
ing in  the  present.  And  this  is  fooHsh  mutiny  to 
those  who  cannot  understand;  but  to  those  who 
can,  it  is  a  fine  rebellion.  And  that,  is  all  the 
difference. 

What  silly  tassels  "figures"  can  appear,  when 
discourse  is  conceived  as  wholly  occupied  with 
interchange  of  meaning,  we  have  seen.  A  studied 
row  of  metrical  or  rhyming  syllables  is  equally 
absurd,  if  it  be  judged  accessory  to  the  convey 


174         ENJOYMENT  OF  POETRY 

ance  of  information  or  conceptual  understand- 
ing. The  entire  technique  of  poetry  is  rejected 
with  a  contemptuous  epithet  by  persons  who  have 
never  caught  the  idea,  even  unconsciously,  that 
there  is  a  difference  between  the  realization  of 
being  and  the  occupation  of  becoming.  From 
their  standpoint,  the  standpoint  of  practical  sa- 
gacity, the  statement  ascribed  to  Tolstoy  that 
nothing  was  ever  said  in  poetry  which  could  not  be 
better  said  in  plain  language,  is  entirely  true. 
But  from  the  standpoint  of  one  who  wishes  to 
experience  the  intrinsic  nature  of  a  thing  spoken 
of,  it  is  entirely  true  that  nothing  was  ever  said 
in  plain  language  which  could  not  be  better  said  in 
poetry.  When  language  is  essentially  practical, 
too  much  of  the  poetic  is  an  intrusion;  but  when 
language  is  essentially  poetic,  too  much  of  the 
practical  is  an  intrusion.  Whatsoever  part  of 
language  is  poetic,  moreover,  and  aims  to  be  so, 
will  be  judged  and  apprehended  under  the  stand- 
ard of  its  own  aim,  or  it  will  not  be  really  judged 
or  apprehended  at  all. 

When  the  essential  difference  is  once  fixed, 
however,  and  it  is  seen  how  all  language  parts 
away  on  one  side  or  the  other,  what  further  re- 
lates to  the  art  of  enjoying  poetry  will  be  quickly 
understood.  It  will  appear  that  poetry  is  not  a 
mere  digression,  but  a  parallel  of  achievement. 


TO  ENJOY  POETRY  175 

It  requires  the  same  energy  of  morning.  You 
cannot  sit  down  in  the  odd  moments  and  snatch  a 
bite  of  poetry.  There  will  be  words,  but  the  real- 
ization will  not  come.  It  is  the  vigorous  idleness 
that  is  so  rare.  And  once  it  is  attained,  a  child- 
like vividness  of  speech  is  almost  inevitable,  and 
the  poetry  of  books  rings  wholly  true.  All  those 
inconsequent  details  and  qualities,  those  self-sig- 
nificant comparisons,  those  throbbing  syllables, 
come  like  an  inspiration  to  the  mind.  Their  stir- 
ring and  sustaining  of  pure  consciousness  exalts 
us.  And  the  power  of  lingering,  forgotten  since 
the  nursery  picture-books  were  closed,  returns, 
and  these  the  picture-books  of  our  maturity  grow 
vivid  with  the  colors  of  the  worid. 

The  power  of  lingering  with  energy — this  is  the 
second  lesson  in  the  art  of  loving  poetry.  The 
third,  if  we  may  steal  a  word  from  those  who 
teach  the  love  of  God,  is  faith.  For  poetry  is  like 
religion  in  that  it  exists  with  glorious  definition 
for  those  who  have  attained  it,  but  for  those  who 
merely  look  upon  it,  there  is  little  that  appears. 
I  believe  that  if  we  were  to  examine  the  whole 
field  of  poetry,  from  the  first  corybantic  festival 
to  the  last  polished  rondel  of  a  French  artist,  for 
some  common  characteristic  in  the  words  them' 
selves,  whereby  the  essence  of  poetry  should  be 
indicated,  we  should  find  one  such  characteristic 


176         ENJOYMENT  OF  POETRY 

and  one  only.  It  would  not  be  rhythm.  It 
would  be  the  employment  of  certain  particles 
of  emotion  or  address  which  are  wholly  foreign 
to  the  speech  of  ordinary  communication.  The 
Ahs,  and  Thou's,  and  the  Forevermores,  seem  to  be 
more  universal  in  the  language  of  realization  than 
any  other  audible  or  visible  thing.  And  are  they 
not  a  result  of  the  wish  to  establish  a  separation 
of  the  poetic  moment,  to  beget  in  the  hearer  a 
change,  a  reverence,  a  kind  of  submission  to  the 
magic  that  invests  the  poet — a  magic  that  will 
not  exist  for  him  until  he  yields?  The  trance  of 
realization  is  a  definite  experience.  It  would  be 
praised  by  many  that  are  scornful,  if  they  but 
knew  it,  this  sacred  charm  that  can  swing  down 
into  the  most  wretched  lives  or  circumstances  and 
illumine  them.  And  if  we  dwell  upon  its  kinship 
with  a  vision  or  a  waking  sleep,  let  this  not  sug- 
gest unhealth,  or  unreality,  or  anything  occult, 
for  it  is  natural  as  laughter.  Only  let  it  give  a 
doubt  to  those  who  now  dismiss  the  poetry  of 
rhji:hmic  language  from  the  things  of  their  en- 
joyment before  they  ever  have  experienced  it. 

The  surest  path  to  its  experience,  if  they  should 
humbly  wish  to  know,  lies  not  through  reading, 
but  through  making  it.  Better  than  faith  or  cher- 
ished idleness,  better  even  than  understanding 
poetry  as  a  way  to  learn  the  enjoyment  of  it — 


TO  ENJOY  POETRY  177 

and  that  without  alienation  from  the  better  poem 
of  one's  own  existence — is  to  create  it  for  one's  self. 
Let  but  a  rhythmic  utterance  with  the  chosen 
name  rise  in  some  deep  or  vivid  moment  of  our 
own  experience,  and  the  rhythms  and  designa- 
tions of  great  poetry  are  then  forever  natural. 
We  are  of  their  kindred,  and  their  speech  is  native 
to  our  minds. 


CHAPTER  XIV 
TO  COMPOSE  POETRY 

The  knowledge  needed  to  create  an  English 
rhythm,  the  only  general  knowledge  there  is  upon 
that  subject,  may  be  acquired  while  one  converses 
about  it.  There  may  be  different  ways  of  sys- 
temizing  this  knowledge,  but  one  which  flows 
from  our  hypothesis  about  the  waves,  appears 
the  most  simple.  Rhythm,  according  to  that 
hypothesis,  must  be  a  repetition  of  similar  effects 
at  approximately  equal  intervals;  and  the  similar 
effects  repeated  in  poetry  are,  in  the  first  place, 
lines,  and  in  the  second  place,  surges  of  emphasis 
within  the  lines. 

Both  lines,  or  short  utterances  separated  by  a 
pause,  and  the  surges  of  emphasis  within  them, 
are  found  in  primitive  chants;  therefore  neither 
can  be  regarded  as  the  more  original  unit.  Poetic 
rhythm  is  almost  universally  a  combination  of  the 
two,  and  its  chief  varieties  arise  from  this  fact. 
Nevertheless,  the  line  has  been  simply  taken  for 
granted  by  most  prosodists,  as  though  it  were  tied 
across  the  page  before  the  poet  came  there,  and 
his  verses  were  various  ways  of  stringing  syllables 
upon  it.  This  is  due,  I  suppose,  to  the  fact  that 
178 


TO  COMPOSE  POETRY  179 

the  line  rhythm  is  visible  to  a  reader,  whereas  the 
rhythm  of  emphasis  is  only  audible,  or  to  be  felt 
in  the  motions  of  articulation.  But  whatever  may 
be  the  cause,  it  is  a  basic  error,  and  the  great  rea- 
son, I  believe,  why  no  clear  account  of  the  nature 
of  poetic  rhythm  has  ever  been  given. 

The  recurrence  of  lines  is  often  accentuated  by 
placing  rhymed  syllables  in  a  regular  order  at  the 
ends.  Without  some  such  device,  indeed,  when 
poetry  is  read  aloud  as  we  read  it  in  these  days, 
the  existence  of  lines  is  hardly  to  be  detected  at 
all.  We  may  regard  the  audible  rhythm  of  blank 
verse  as  almost  purely  accentual,  and  represent 
it  by  a  single  series  of  waves. 

The  incurrence  of  rhyme  in  this  series  might  then 
be  represented  as  scientists  represent  any  merging 
of  commensurable  undulations,  thus: 


This  strong  intensifying  of  the  line  series  arises 
naturally,  I  believe,  only  in  poetry  that  is  espe- 
cially exciting.  Milton  was  doubtless  right  in  de- 
claring it  to  be  a  troublesome  bondage  in  the  labor 
of  composing  or  reading  a  work,  part  poem  and 
part  treatise,  Hke  "  Paradise  Lost."  But  as  a  gen- 
eral dogma  he  has  reduced  his  own  statement  to 


180         ENJOYMENT  OF  POETRY 

absurdity  by  writing  greater  poetry  with  rhyme 
inevitable.  Rhyme  reduplicates  the  metric  pulse 
when  feeling  runs  strong,  as  insuppressibly  as  a 
dancing  darky  begins  to  clap  his  hands  with 
every  so  many  clicks  of  his  flying  feet.  A  sim- 
ilar reduplication  may  be,  and  has  been,  accom- 
plished in  poetry  by  other  means,  and  means  less 
difficult  to  the  composer,  but  rhyme  is  probably 
the  final  best  of  them.  Its  exciting  and  hypnotic 
power  was  discovered  by  the  Chinese,  by  the 
Persians,  and  Arabic  poets,  and  doubtless  inde- 
pendently by  the  late  Latins  in  Europe.  It  is 
neither  a  conventional  ornament,  nor  a  mnemonic 
device,  nor  esoteric,  nor  ephemeral,  in  poetry.  It 
is  as  native  to  a  rhythm  that  flows  high  as  white- 
caps  to  the  ocean. 

As  for  the  accentual  rhythm,  the  surge  of  em- 
phasis within  the  lines — that  needs  no  intensifica- 
tion, for  once  it  is  established,  it  can  hardly  be 
concealed.  It  is  established  by  so  arranging  the 
words  that  their  natural  accents  produce  it.  Ex- 
amine, for  instance,  the  following  sentence: 

When  y6u  have  eaten  all  of  ydur  peanuts,  y6u 
wUl  n6t  he  allowed  to  share  mine. 

Various  emphases  or  accented  syllables  are  here, 
but  no  metrical  rhythm.  The  words  must  be  re- 
arranged until  the  emphases  recur  at  approxi" 
mately  equal  intervals. 


TO  COMPOSE  POETRY  181 

When  y6u  have  eaten  all  yours,  my  pednuts  ydu 
cannot  shdre, 

begins  to  suggest  such  an  arrangement.  Yet  it  is 
unsatisfactory.  It  sounds  like  the  translation  of  a 
libretto.    It  can  be  improved  as  follows: 

"You  cdnH  haw  any  of  my  peanuts  when  yoUr 
peanuts  are  gone!'* 

This  possesses  a  rhythm  so  strong  as  to  compel  us 
to  mispronounce  a  word  without  knowing  that 
we  have  done  so.  We  cannot  say  pea-nuts  any 
longer,  even  when  we  try. 

These  three  sentences  will  exemplify  the  process 
of  producing  an  accentual  rhythm.  Each  surge 
of  this  rhythm,  each  group  of  syllables  containing 
an  accent,  is  called  a  "  foot."  And  the  natural  ac- 
cent plays  exactly  the  same  part  in  the  foot,  that 
the  rhyme,  or  the  pause,  or  the  turning  back  of 
the  eyes,  does  in  the  line.  It  establishes  and 
marks  the  crest  of  a  rhythmic  pulse.  And  these 
pulses,  as  well  as  the  line  pulses,  might  be  marked 
off  upon  the  page,  if  they  were  not  already  in 
danger  of  over-emphasis. 

"Odt  of  the/hills  of /Hdber/shdm, 
Down  the /valleys  of /Hall— 
I  h(ir/ry  amain /to  redch/the  plain, 
Rtin  the/rdpid  and/ledp  the /fall " 

From  this  combining  of  the  pulse  of  accent  with 
the  pulse  of  line  into  a  single  flow,  there  arise  four 


182         ENJOYMENT  OF  POETRY 

general  types  of  rhythm.  That  in  which  the  ac- 
cent occurs  upon  the  first  syllable  of  the  line,  and 
not  upon  the  last,  we  might  call  a  downward,  or 
falling,  rhythm. 

"Lazy  latjghing  languid  J^nny, 
F6nd  of  a  kiss  and  f6nd  of  a  guinea." 

That  in  which  the  accent  occurs  upon  the  first 
syllable,  and  also  upon  the  last,  would  be  a  down- 
and-upward,  or  a  falling-rising  rhythm. 

"Swiftly  wdlk  o'er  the  western  wave, 
Spirit  of  Night  1" 

That  in  which  the  accent  occurs  upon  the  second 
(or  third)  syllable,  and  not  upon  the  last,  would  be 
an  up-and-downward,  or  a  rising-falling  rhythm. 

"Wee,  sleekit,  cowrin*,  tlm'rous  beistie, 
O,  wh^t  a  panic's  In  thy  breastie! 
Thou  need  na  start  awa  sae  hasty, 

Wi'  blck'ring  brattle! 
I  wld  be  lalth  to  rin  an'  chase  thee, 

Wi'  mtird'ring  pittlel" 

And  that  in  which  the  accent  occurs  upon  the 
second  (or  third)  syllable,  and  also  upon  the  last, 
would  be  a  wholly  upward,  or  rising,  rhythm. 

"Ye  banks  and  bries  o*  b6nny  Doon, 
How  c£n  ye  bl6om  sae  fresh  and  f^I 
How  can  ye  sing,  ye  little  birds. 
And  I  sae  weary  fu'  o'  carel 


TO  COMPOSE  POETRY  183 

Thou'lt  break  my  heart,  thou  warbling  bird, 
That  wantons  thro'  the  flowering  thorn! 
Thou  minds  me  o'  departed  joys. 
Departed — ^never  to  return." 

These  four  ways  of  combining  the  line  with  the 
foot-rhythm  are  so  different  in  effect  that  it  is 
well  either  to  make  them  alternate  at  regular  in- 
tervals, or  else  to  make  one  kind  predominate 
enough  throughout  a  poem  to  throw  the  mantle 
of  its  quality  over  the  whole. 

Two  rhythms  are  so  made  to  alternate  in  this 
supremely,  and  to  me  sadly,  beautiful  song  of 
Tom  Moore's. 

"Come,  ye  disconsolate,  where'er  you  languish. 
Come,  at  God's  altar,  fervently  kneel; 
Here  bring  your  wounded  hearts,  here  tell  your  anguish 
'Earth  has  no  sorrow  that  Heaven  cannot  heal.* 

"Joy  of  the  desolate,  Light  of  the  straying, 
Hope,  when  aU  others  die,  fadeless  and  pure. 
Here  speaks  the  Comforter,  in  God's  name  saying 
*  Earth  has  no  sorrow  that  Heaven  cannot  cure.' 

**Go,  ask  the  infidel,  what  boon  he  brings  us — 
What  charm  for  aching  hearts  he  can  reveal, 
Sweet  as  that  heavenly  promise  Hope  sings  us— 
'Earth  has  no  sorrow  that  God  cannot  heal.*  ** 

In  Charles  Eangsley's  "Song  of  a  River,"  on  the 
other  hand,  the  spirit  of  a  fall  and  rise  rhythm  is 
sustained,  in  spite  of  many  variant  lines,  through- 
out. 


184         ENJOYMENT  OF  POETRY 

"Clear  and  cool,  clear  and  cool, 
By  laughing  shallow  and  dreaming  pool; 

Cool  and  clear,  cool  and  clear. 
By  shining  shingle  and  foaming  wear; 
Under  the  crag  where  the  ouzel  sings, 
And  the  ivied  wall  where  the  Church  bell  rings, 

Undefiled  for  the  undefiled; 
Play  by  me,  bathe  in  me,  Mother  and  Child. 

"Dank  and  foul,  dank  and  foul. 
By  the  smoky  town  in  its  murky  cowl; 

Foul  and  dank,  foul  and  dank. 
By  wharf  and  sewer  and  slimy  bank; 
Darker  and  darker  the  further  I  go. 
Baser  and  baser  the  richer  I  grow; 

Who  dare  sport  with  the  sin  defiled? 
Shrink  from  me,  turn  from  me,  Mother  and  Child. 

"Strong  and  free,  strong  and  free; 
The  flood  gates  are  open,  away  to  the  sea. 

Free  and  strong,  free  and  strong. 
Cleansing  my  streams  as  I  hurry  along 
To  the  golden  sands,  and  the  leaping  bar, 
And  the  taintless  tide  that  awaits  me  afar, 
As  I  lose  myself  in  the  infinite  main 

Like  a  soul  that  has  sinned  and  is  pardoned  again. 
Undefiled  for  the  undefiled; 
Play  by  me,  bathe  in  me,  Mother  and  Child." 

The  variations  possible  from  any  of  these 
rhythms  are  evidently  milimited.  But  a  maker 
of  poetry  will  usually  have  the  swing  of  one  or 
another  of  them  definitely  in  his  veins.  And  this, 
if  he  be  an  amateur,  he  can  most  easily  acquire  by 


TO  COMPOSE  POETRY  185 

"beating  the  time"  with  a  pencil,  or  by  simply 
repeating  a  monotonous  syllable  in  the  various 
ways. 

Ta  ta,  Ta  ta,  Ta  ta 
Ta  ta,  Ta  ta,  Ta 

for  example,  and 

ta  Ta,  ta  Td,  ta  Td, 
ta  Td,  ta  Ta,  ta  Td,  ta. 

Two  such  rhythms,  even  in  this  abstract  form, 
will  have  a  different  effect  upon  his  spirits.  And 
by  tasting  this  difference  he  will  learn  more  than 
a  whole  book  of  Greek  terms  could  teach  him. 
,  The  only  other  general  difference  between 
rhythms  is  a  difference  in  the  length  of  their 
surges.  Poetry  may  be  made,  that  is,  with  lines 
of  greater  or  less  length;  and  it  may  be  made  with 
feet  of  greater  or  less  length.  The  lines  will  hardly 
exceed  six  (or  at  the  most  seven)  feet,  because  if 
they  exceed  that,  they  cannot  easily  be  perceived 
in  the  reading  as  a  single  thing.  Within  that  lim- 
itation, however,  the  variety  in  length  of  line,  or 
arrangements  of  different  lengths,  among  which  a 
poet  may  choose  is  determined,  not  by  any  laws 
of  prosody,  but  by  the  laws  of  combination  and 
permutation,  or  his  own  wish.  Only  he  must  re- 
member that  if  he  mixes  lines  of  different  length, 
with  entire  absence  of  regularity  in  the  recurrence 


186         ENJOYMENT  OF  POETRY 

of  similar  ones,  he  sacrifices  the  line  almost  en- 
tirely as  an  element  of  fmidamental  rhythm. 

As  for  the  length  of  foot — that,  too,  is  deter- 
mined by  the  poet's  wish.  He  will  find  it  impos- 
sible to  pronomice  more  than  three  (or  at  the 
most  four)  syllables  naturally,  without  placing  an 
accent  upon  one  of  them,  but  within  that  limita- 
tion his  choice  is  free.  He  may  introduce  what- 
ever number  of  syllables  between  each  recurrent 
emphasis  he  chooses.  And  he  may  use  feet  of 
different  length  in  whatever  succession  he  chooses. 
Only,  as  in  the  case  of  lines,  if  the  length  of  his 
surge  (the  interval  between  his  emphases)  is  not 
kept  regular  enough  to  maintain  the  general  char- 
acter of  repeating  similars  in  equal  intervals,  he 
will  sacrifice  the  foot  entirely  as  an  element  of 
fundamental  rhythm. 

There  is  little  more  than  this  to  be  said  with 
truth  of  metrical  utterance  as  a  mode  of  sustaining 
realization.  There  is  one  thing  more  to  be  said, 
however,  for  those  who  wish  to  compose  poetry. 
Rhythmic  perception  among  the  civilized  races, 
and  especially  the  musically  civilized,  is  finer  than 
it  used  to  be  when  they  shouted  their  poems  to  the 
accompaniment  of  a  tom-tom.  We  no  longer  need 
the  tom-tom's  assistance  in  detecting  a  rhythm, 
and  it  only  gives  us  a  sing-song  and  monotonous 
experience,  against  which  in  itself  we  often  react 


TO  COMPOSE  POETRY  187 

80  strongly  that  it  fails  utterly  to  produce  a 
rhythmic  exaltation.  We  simply  go  somewhere 
else.  And  therefore  amateur  poets  must  beware 
of  shouting  to  the  tom-tom.  They  must  beware 
of  having  the  actual  surge  of  their  poetry,  when  it 
is  naturally  read,  fall  in  too  exactly  with  the 
rhythmic  pattern.  For  the  pattern  will  then 
dominate  them  entirely,  and  their  bodies  will  ap- 
pear to  be  swaying  and  swinging  and  their  feet 
drununing  time  to  their  words,  and  while  they 
may  themselves  enter  in  a  truly  hearty  and  primi- 
tive fashion  into  this  performance,  it  will  surely 
appear  a  little  ludicrous  to  most  of  their  audi- 
ence. 

We  might  express  it  in  this  way,  that  man  has 
grown  so  perspicacious,  and  so  vain  of  his  perspi- 
cacity in  these  matters,  that  he  will  not  tolerate 
having  himself  played  upon  by  a  too  obvious  de- 
vice. He  will  not  even  walk  up  the  street  with  a 
drum,  unless  it  conceal  its  monotonous  function 
under  some  flippancy,  skipping  a  beat  now  and 
then,  or  throwing  in  a  little  superfluous  thunder. 
He  wishes  to  unravel  his  rhythm  out  of  something 
else.  He  wishes  here,  as  everywhere,  to  find  a 
similarity  in  apparent  difference  by  at  least  a 
semiconscious  act.  And  this  little  vanity  of  his 
you  will  have  to  consider,  even  though  you  may 
not  care  to  cultivate  the  conflicts  between  your 


188        ENJOYIMENT  OF  POETRY 

pattern  and  your  phrasal  rhythm  for  themselves. 
You  will  have  to  remember  continually  to  swing 
the  natural  utterance  of  your  verse  out  of  the  chan- 
nel of  its  rhythm,  and  yet  swing  it  in  again,  and 
ever  and  ever  again,  so  that  the  pulses  of  that 
rhythm,  while  they  are  not  exaggerated,  are  yet 
abundantly  sustained. 

Remember  that  you  are  engendering  and  sus- 
taining in  the  mind  a  flow  of  waves,  and  you  will 
need  no  laws  of  prosody.  Remember  also  that  the 
words,  and  groups  of  words,  you  work  with,  are 
not  common  names  grown  old  in  the  conveyance  of 
a  meaning;  they  are  surprising  names,  new-made 
by  you,  to  choose  fresh  quaHties  and  details  in  the 
things  you  speak  of,  and  to  join  them  in  the  mind 
wath  other  things  they  never  knew  before,  thus 
sending  them  alive  and  vivid  into  that  stream  of 
heightened  consciousness  the  waves  induce.  You 
will  need  no  laws  of  rhetoric.  You  will  have  the 
knowledge  of  the  art  of  writing  poetry,  and  the 
surest  path  to  its  enjoyment. 


CHAPTER  XV 
THE  PRACTICAL  VALUE  OF  POETRY 

Every  little  while  the  members  of  a  young 
men's  society  debate  the  question  whether  poets 
or  statesmen  have  had  the  greatest  effect  upon 
history.  They  decide  in  favor  of  the  poets,  and 
then  go  and  devote  themselves  to  poUtics  and 
practical  affairs.  If  meanwhile  a  poet  arises 
among  them,  he  has  attributed  to  him  an  unusu- 
ally liquid  and  ineffectual  character.  It  appears 
that  a  poet  in  history  is  divine,  but  a  poet  in  the 
next  room  is  a  joke.  Nobody  demurs  at  our  at- 
tributing power  to  Shakespeare,  the  supreme 
greatness  of  Anglo-Saxon  life.  Few  feel  that 
Bacon  could  uphold  such  greatness.  And  the 
farther  into  history  we  look,  the  more  the  states- 
men dwindle  and  the  poets  shine.  Lincoln's  word 
of  praise  gives  final  honor  to  Walt  Whitman,  but 
poets  are  the  very  fame  of  Pericles. 

This  mixture  of  veneration  with  distrust  toward 
poetry  is  not  colloquial.  It  is  the  world's  attitude. 
There  are  savages  of  Africa  who  give  beads  of 
wealth  and  honor  to  the  singers  that  entertain 
them,  but  they  bury  them  upside  down  in  a  hollow 
tree,  to  show  that  the  honor  is  not  unmixed  with 
189 


190         ENJOYMENT  OF  POETRY 

contempt.  I  sometimes  think  the  singers  of  our 
own  day  have  a  sunilarly  compounded  attitude 
toward  themselves.  For  while  they  consider  a 
life  of  realization  so  self-justifying  as  to  warrant 
their  renouncing  for  it  every  aspiration  of  an 
acting  man,  they  still  descend  from  this  to  com- 
plain that  they  are  not  appreciated  by  others,  as 
though  they  had  not  their  own  reward.  Even  the 
greatest  have  been  affected  by  some  double  cur- 
rent of  feehng,  for  they  have  been  moved  to  de- 
fend poetry  and  write  apologies  for  her,  as  though 
she  were  in  contempt  of  men,  but  these  apologies 
when  they  were  written  gave  her  such  character 
as  would  make  apology  an  impertinence.  They 
defended  her  by  declaring  that  she  is  above  the 
need  or  possibility  of  defence,  she  is  life  and  mind 
itself. 

One  supreme  man  in  literature  is  reputed  to 
have  renounced  poetry  altogether.  But  he  did 
in  fact  only  dwell  with  especial  emphasis  upon 
each  side  of  this  paradox.  Plato  is  magnificent 
both  in  scorn  and  adoration  of  the  poetic  gift. 
Poets,  he  declares,  are  foolish,  they  are  an  out- 
rage upon  the  moral  understanding,  so  insidious 
in  their  arts  that  he  is  all  but  ready  to  banish  the 
whole  tribe  from  his  ideal  Republic.  For  what 
are  they  engaged  in?  They  are  engaged  in  pre- 
senting to  the  affections,  not  ideas,  but  mere 


PRACTICAL  VALUE  OF  POETRY  191 

things,  and  these  generally  the  most  blood-heating 
kinds  of  things,  over  which  they  work  us  up  into  a 
wholly  inconsequent  madness.  Nay,  it  is  worse 
than  that,  for  these  things  of  theirs  are  not  even 
real,  they  are  not  there  at  all,  they  are  only 
imagined  things!  So  why  should  we  sacrifice  our 
equiUbrium  to  them?  Have  we  not  enough  to 
exercise  us  in  the  conduct  of  genuine  life  according 
to  intelligent  principles?  Such  is  the  great  ques- 
tion as  to  poetry.  And  I  think  that  every  poetic 
person  who  is  well  equipped  for  life,  has  in  him  this 
platonic  and  vulgar  contempt  of  conscious  realiza- 
tion, and  can  taste  the  anathema  in  the  term  poet. 
"He  who  cannot  rise  above  his  writings  that  he 
has  been  long  patching  and  piecing  together,  add- 
ing some  and  taking  away  some,  may  be  justly 
called  Poet!'*  says  Plato,  in  high  scorn  of  his  own 
pursuits. 

It  seems  as  though  a  man  ought  to  have  some- 
thing to  do.  Sitting  in  a  hammock  with  a  book 
of  rhyme,  realizing  the  intrinsic  being  of  some- 
thing, perhaps  the  west  wind,  when  he  ought  to 
trim  a  windmill,  and  be  starting  up  the  pump — 
this  is  a  poor  picture  of  a  hero.  So  poor  is  it, 
that  it  will  probably  bring  those  who  adore  poetry, 
if  they  have  not  been  brought  already,  into  open 
conflict  with  our  opinion  that  it  is  essentially  a 
realization.    They  will  declare  that  poetry  does 


192         ENJOYMENT  OF  POETRY 

promote  achievement,  does  concern  itself  with 
practical  truth  and  meaning.  A  man  unac- 
quainted with  the  "Book  of  Poems,"  according  to 
Confucius,  is  not  only  unable  to  see,  but  also 
unable  to  advance — ^he  is  face  to  face  with  a  stone 
wall.  According  to  Philip  Sidney,  effective  instruc- 
tion is  almost  the  definitive  function  of  poetry. 
For  Shelley  all  life's  idealism,  all  progress  of  the 
spirit,  all  hope  of  high  action,  is  contained  in  the 
word.  And  no  one  of  these  enthusiasts  exceeds 
Plato  himself,  who  declares,  with  royal  inconsist- 
ency, that  the  character  of  a  people  depends  so 
much  more  upon  their  songs  than  upon  anything 
else,  that  we  ought  to  make  these  the  chief  forces 
in  education.  Give  them  great  poetry  and  the 
state  will  flourish.  Did  he  say  that  poetry  is  mad- 
ness? Yes — but  the  madness  of  poets  is  the  most 
eflBcacious  state  of  being  that  this  world  offers. 
Madmen  are  strong.  They  mould  history  and  the 
earth.  Is  it  not  a  kind  of  madness  that  the  world 
exists  at  all,  a  kind  of  infatuation  with  the  idea  of 
being?  And  is  not  the  madness  of  Homer  more 
akin  to  divinity  than  the  sanity  of  all  your  poli- 
ticians? Would  you  not  even  rather  join  your- 
self with  Homer,  who  so  loved  reality,  and  begot 
with  her  such  children  as  the  Iliad  and  the  Odys- 
sey, than  be  a  husband  and  the  father  in  respecta- 
bility of  a  whole  family  of  industrious  citizens? 


PRACTICAL  VALUE  OF  POETRY  193 

Such  is  the  other  judgment  of  Plato,  and  his  en- 
thusiasm when  he  speaks  upon  the  brighter  side 
of  this  universal  paradox. 

We  cannot  but  conclude  that  poetry  is  of  high 
practical  value;  it  is  of  value  to  purposive  con- 
duct and  adjustment  for  the  future.  And  yet  we 
know  that  in  some  way  it  is  also  not  practical, 
and  of  no  value  beyond  itself.  I  think  there  would 
be  no  inconsistency  here,  if  we  were  not  too  eager 
to  generalize — if  we  were  content  to  say  that  some 
poetry  is  of  high  practical  value,  and  that  other 
poetry  is  of  no  such  value  at  all.  Then  we  should 
be  separating  the  general  definition  of  poetry  from 
the  estimation  of  particular  poems,  as  heretofore 
none  of  its  lovers  have  been  willing  to  do,  and  we 
could  resolve  that  ancient  paradox  and  subject  it 
to  the  demands  of  rationality. 

The  poetic  as  such  is  not  concerned  with  con- 
duct or  the  conveyance  of  meaning.  But  when 
one  who  is  concerned  with  conduct  and  desires  to 
convey  a  meaning,  conveys  it  poetically,  he  adds 
to  his  speech  a  great  and  separate  power.  He  not 
only  gives  to  our  mind  the  indication,  or  the  gen- 
eral information  that  he  wishes,  but  he  gives  to 
our  bodies  an  acute  impression  less  easy  to  forget. 
To  read  in  practical  language  is  to  be  told,  but 
to  read  in  poetry  is  to  learn  by  experience.  And 
it  is  because  of  this,  because  imaginative  realiza- 


194        ENJOYMENT  OF  POETRY 

tion  can  enhance  the  statement  of  a  meaning  and 
augment  its  practical  effect,  that  poetry  has  be- 
come identified  with  meaning,  and  with  truth, 
and  wisdom,  and  morahty,  and  all  those  things 
that  look  greatly  into  the  future.  Poetry  but 
lends  itself  to  them.  It  is  of  its  own  nature  for- 
eign to  them  all. 

Suppose  we  say  that  life  and  danger  and  death 
are  a  great  adventure,  and  it  is  best  to  know  them 
and  enter  into  them  heartily — ^we  should  put  into 
that  statement  almost  all  the  meaning  of  this 
poem,  but  we  should  leave  out  the  living  realiza- 
tion of  its  meaning: 

"Give  me  a  spirit  that  on  life's  rough  sea 
Loves  to  have  his  sails  fill'd  with  a  lusty  wind 
Even  till  his  sail-yards  tremble,  his  masts  crack, 
And  his  rapt  ship  run  on  her  side  so  low 
That  she  drinks  water  and  her  keel  ploughs  air; 
There  is  no  danger  to  a  man  that  knows 
What  life  and  death  is — there's  not  any  law 
Exceeds  his  knowledge." 

Does  not  such  poetry  add  itself  and  its  own 
efficacy,  entirely  new,  to  the  meaning  which  we 
had  expressed?  And  furthermore,  if  poetry  can 
add  efficacy  to  such  a  meaning,  will  it  not  also 
add  efficacy  to  false  or  impractical  meanings?  I 
think  that  we  should  as  rigorously  condenm  a 
poet  for  touching  the  torch  of  realization  to  an 
unheroic  idea,  such  as  this. 


PRACTICAL  VALUE  OF  POETRY  195 

**  *T  is  not  what  man  Does  which  exalts  him,  but  what 
man  Would  dol" 

as  we  should  extol  him  for  giving  illumination  to  a 
great  concept.  But  in  either  case  the  illumination 
is  not  the  concept,  and  if  opinions  are  ever  to  be 
consistent  upon  this  subject,  it  must  be  distin- 
guished from  it  by  the  understanding.  No  mean- 
ing properly  so  called  has  ever  been  expressed 
with  poetry,  which  could  not  conceivably  be  sev- 
ered from  its  poetry  and  set  forth  in  practical 
language. 

Perhaps  this  judgment  does  not  give  to  poetry 
as  such  the  most  conmianding  place  in  men's 
esteem.  For  while  they  all  respect  the  expression 
of  a  meaning  destitute  of  poetry,  calling  this  a 
culmination  of  their  scientific  spirit,  but  few  give 
honor  to  any  poetry  that  is  unrelated  to  a  mean- 
ing. Reading  pure  poetry  is  like  gazing  on  the 
moonlight  long.  We  wish  we  could  receive  it, 
but  we  cannot — a  final  proof  that  we  are  sadly 
practical  at  heart.  We  are  but  driven  pilgrims 
through  the  world,  the  children  of  its  evolution, 
and  we  must  be  going  on.  Pure  being  is  too  much 
for  us.  The  best  that  we  can  ask  of  moonlight  is 
that  it  shall  shine  upon  our  occupation.  Perhaps 
the  best  that  we  can  ask  of  poetry  is  that  it  shall 
attend  the  statement  of  a  truth  with  glory.  And 
yet  there  are  great  poems,  poems  universally 


196         ENJOYIVIENT  OF  POETRY 

called  great,  which  are  pure  realizations.  There 
is  Keats's  "Ode  to  Autumn."  Let  it  be  held  a 
supreme  achievement  of  his  genius.  For  with  all 
the  world  intent  upon  a  future,  eager  for  the  word 
that  indicates,  it  is  not  easy  to  withhold  it  and  be 
noble.  It  is  not  possible  for  those  mere  lovers  of 
their  moods  who  oftenest  elect  to  try  it.  But  for 
those  whose  character  and  thought  are  deep,  de- 
termined onward  with  the  world,  and  who  arrest 
us  as  the  world  itself  sometimes  arrests  us  for  a 
moment  only  with  the  wonder  of  its  being,  it  is 
possible.  Pure  poetry  upon  their  lips  seems  even 
more  divine  than  truth,  mor«.  ultimate,  more  uni- 
versal. 

There  is  indeed,  for  those  who  recognize  its  aim, 
a  value  in  such  poetry  that  goes  beyond  the  pres- 
ent. There  is  a  value  toward  a  goal  not  yet  at- 
tained. Even  the  mere  realization  of  autumn  in 
its  absence — unattended  though  it  be  by  any 
moral  or  true  meaning — looks  somewhat  to  a  fut- 
ure ^nd.  It  looks  to  autumn.  It  is  not  only  an 
imagination,  but  a  preperception,  and  its  value 
culminates  in  the  more  full  experience  of  the  very 
hours  it  dreamed  of.  Thus  the  poetry  of  words 
may  be  regarded  as  a  means  toward  the  poetry 
of  life.  It  is  to  that  end  practical.  It  nourishes 
the  waking  spirit,  nourishes  the  gift  of  vision,  and 
the  tendency  to  issue  from  the  bondages  of  habit 


PRACTICAL  VALUE  OF  POETRY  197 

and  receive  the  world.  We  recognize  this  value 
in  our  kindergartens,  where  we  seek  to  train  the 
mind  in  childhood  for  keeping  awake  during  a 
lifetime.  But  poetry  continues  and  renews  this 
training  always.  We  do  not  read  Shelley  and 
then  return  to  the  world,  but  we  see  the  world 
through  Shelley's  eyes.  Creative  vision  of  the 
specific  actaal  throughout  all  time — creative  vi- 
sion kindled  by  that  flaming  language,  is  an  on- 
ward and  immortal  value  of  his  songs. 

The  poetry  of  books  prepares,  and  also  it  re- 
stores. To  us  the  world  grows  stale,  because  in 
proportion  as  we  become  accustomed  to  a  thing 
we  are  estranged  from  it.  In  proportion  as  we 
win  the  daily  presence  of  our  friends,  we  lose 
them.  We  come  to  regard  life  as  a  dry  package  of 
facts.  We  want  the  spirituous  refreshment  of  an- 
other's vision.  We  want  to  have  our  eyes  re- 
opened, and  our  souls  made  naked  to  the  touch  of 
being. 

This  is  the  priesthood  of  art — not  to  bestow 
upon  the  universe  a  new  aspect,  but  upon  the 
beholder  a  new  enthusiasm.  At  our  doors  every 
morning  the  creation  is  sung.  The  day  is  a 
drama,  the  night  is  an  unfolding  mystery,  within 
whose  shadowy  arena  impetuous  life  shall  still 
contend  with  death.  A  world  laughs  and  bleeds 
for  us  all  the  time,  but  our  response  in  this 


198         ENJOYMENT  OF  POETRY 

meteoric  theatre  we  suffer  to  be  drugged  \\^th 
business  and  decorum.  We  are  born  sleeping, 
and  few  of  us  ever  awake,  unless  it  be  upon  some 
hideous  midnight  when  death  startles  us,  and  we 
learn  in  grief  alone  what  bit  of  01>Tnpian  fire  our 
humid  forms  enwrapped.  But  we  could  open  our 
eyes  to  joy  also.  The  poet  cries  "Awake!"  and 
sings  the  song  of  the  morning.  He  that  hath  eyes 
let  him  see!  Even  now  all  around  us  the  trees 
have  arisen,  and  their  leaves  are  tongues  of  the 
air  in  song — the  earth  swings  on  in  drastic  revolu- 
tion— and  we  laugh  and  love  perpetually — and 
the  winds  enlarge  our  goings  and  our  comings 
with  a  tune. 

The  poet,  the  restorer,  is  the  prophet  of  a 
greater  thing  than  faith.  All  creeds  and  theories 
serve  him,  for  he  goes  behind  them  all,  and  imparts 
by  a  straighter  line  from  his  mind  to  yours  the 
spirit  of  bounteous  living.  His  wisdom  is  above 
knowledge.  He  cries  to  our  sleeping  selves  to 
come  aloft,  and  when  we  are  come  he  answers  with 
a  gesture  only.  In  him  we  find  no  principle;  we 
find  ourselves  re-born  alive  into  the  worid. 

So  far  from  being  past,  or  on  the  wane,  this  wis- 
dom of  the  soul  of  poetry  looks  for  the  first  time 
joyfully  into  the  future.  Man  is  now  returning 
to  his  rights  as  an  animal.  He  has  now  learned 
that  morals  is  not  meant  for  a  scourge  and  a  dry 


PRACTICAL  VALUE  OF  POETRY  199 

medicine,  and  that  joy  is  its  own  reason.  Exist- 
ence was  not  perpetrated  in  malice  or  benevo- 
lence, but  simply  is,  and  the  end  of  our  thinking 
is  that  here  we  are,  and  what  can  we  make  of  it. 
We  have  a  planet  to  act  upon,  a  sense  of  the 
drama.  We  will  not  squat  and  argue,  nor  balk, 
and  try  to  justify  God,  but  we  will  make  with  high 
hearts  of  abandon  our  entrance  and  our  exit  before 
the  congregation  of  the  stars. 


IDEAI^  OF  POETRY 


roEALS  OF  POETRY 

Poetry  that  has  life  for  its  subject,  and  demo- 
cratic reality,  is  rather  expected  to  manifest 
that  irregular  flow  and  exuberance  of  material 
over  structure  with  which  Walt  Whitman  chal- 
lenged the  world.  In  America  at  least  the  free- 
dom and  poignant  candor  of  strong  art  is  associ- 
ated with  the  tradition  that  he  founded,  and  little 
is  granted  to  that  other  tradition  which  finds  its 
original  in  Edgar  Allan  Poe.  There  existed  in 
Europe,  however,  a  succession  of  poets  whose  eyes 
turned  back  in  admiration  to  Poe,  and  they  were 
poets  of  reality,  and  those  who  touched  the  mood 
of  social  revolt.  And  for  my  part  I  think  there  is 
a  modern  validity  in  the  attitudes  of  both  these 
poets,  a  certain  adjudication  between  them  which 
a  perfectly  impersonal  science  might  propose; 
and  that  is  what  I  should  like  to  discuss  with 
those  who  may  enter  sympathetically  into  these 
pages. 

They  will  all  be  familiar,  I  suppose,  with  Walt 
Whitman*s  ideal  of  an  American  poetry  so  free  and 
strong  and  untrammelled  of  ornamentation,  that  it 
203 


204  IDEALS  OF  POETRY 

should  go  out  of  the  books  it  was  published  in,  and 
stand  up  with  the  hills  and  forests  on  the  earth. 

"The  poetry  of  the  future,"  he  said,  "aims  at 
the  free  expression  of  emotion,  (which  means  far, 
far  more  than  appears  at  first,)  and  to  arouse 
and  initiate,  more  than  to  define  or  finish.  .  .  . 

"  In  my  opinion  the  time  has  arrived  to  essen- 
tially break  down  the  barriers  of  form  between 
prose  and  poetry.  I  say  the  latter  is  henceforth 
to  win  and  maintain  its  character  regardless  of 
rhyme,  and  the  measurement-rules  of  iambic, 
spondee,  dactyl,  &c.,  and  that  even  if  ^h^^lle  and 
those  measurements  continue  to  furnish  the  me- 
dium for  inferior  writers  and  themes,  (especially 
for  persiflage  and  the  comic,  as  there  seems  hence- 
forward, to  the  perfect  taste,  something  inevitably 
comic  in  rh\Tne,  merely  in  itself,  and  anyhow,)  the 
truest  and  greatest  Poetry,  (while  subtly  and  nec- 
essarily always  rh}i:hmic,  and  distinguishable 
easily  enough,)  can  never  again,  in  the  English 
language,  be  expressed  in  arbitrary  and  rhyming 
metre,  any  more  than  the  greatest  eloquence,  or 
the  truest  power  and  passion.  \Miile  admitting 
that  the  venerable  and  heavenly  forms  of  chim- 
ing versification  have  in  their  time  play'd  great 
and  fitting  parts — that  the  pensive  complaint,  the 
ballads,  wars,  amours,  legends  of  Europe,  &c., 


IDEALS  OF  POETRY  205 

have,  many  of  them,  been  inimitably  rendered  in 
rhyming  verse — ^that  there  have  been  very  illus- 
trious poets  whose  shapes  the  mantle  of  such 
verse  has  beautifully  and  appropriately  envelopt 
— and  though  the  mantle  has  fallen,  with  per- 
haps added  beauty,  on  some  of  our  own  age — it 
is,  notwithstanding,  certain  to  me,  that  the  day  of 
such  conventional  rhyme  is  ended.  In  America, 
at  any  rate,  and  as  a  medium  of  highest  aesthetic 
practical  or  spiritual  expression,  present  or  fu- 
ture, it  palpably  fails,  and  must  fail,  to  serve. 
The  Muse  of  the  Prairies,  of  California,  Canada, 
Texas,  and  of  the  peaks  of  Colorado,  dismissing 
the  literary,  as  well  as  social  etiquette  of  over-sea 
feudalism  and  caste,  joyfully  enlarging,  adapting 
itself  to  comprehend  the  size  of  the  whole  people, 
with  the  free  play,  emotions,  pride,  passions,  ex- 
periences, that  belong  to  them,  body  and  soul — 
to  the  general  globe,  and  all  its  relations  in  as- 
tronomy, as  the  savants  portray  them  to  us — to 
the  modern,  the  busy  Nineteenth  century,  (as 
grandly  poetic  as  any,  only  different,)  with  steam- 
ships, railroads,  factories,  electric  telegraphs, 
cylinder  presses — to  the  thought  of  the  solidarity 
of  nations,  the  brotherhood  and  sisterhood  of  the 
entire  earth — ^to  the  dignity  and  heroism  of  the 
practical  labor  of  farms,  factories,  foundries, 
workshops,  mines,  or  on  shipboard,  or  on  lakes 


206  IDEALS  OF  POETRY 

and  rivers — resumes  that  other  medium  of  ex- 
pression, more  flexible,  more  eligible — soars  to  the 
freer,  vast,  diviner  heaven  of  prose." 

It  may  surprise  some  people  to  see  this  monu- 
mental challenge  to  the  poets  of  the  future  con- 
fronted with  the  pathetic  memory  of  Edgar  Allan 
Poe.  And  yet  it  is  natural  to  place  these  two 
poets  in  contrast,  and  the  weight  neither  of  genius 
nor  of  influence  is  altogether  upon  one  side.  They 
are  the  two  American  poets  of  unique  distinction, 
and  they  are  the  fountains  of  the  two  strongest 
influences  in  all  modern  poetry  of  the  Occident. 
And  it  is  worth  observing  that  if  Walt  "Whitman 
had  written  as  few  pages  of  poetry  as  Poe  did,  his 
name  would  hardly  be  remembered,  whereas  Poe 
would  have  established  a  literary  tradition  if  he 
had  written  but  five  sorrowful  lyrics.  His  in- 
dividuality was  so  poignant.  His  art  was  so  ex- 
quisite. And  not  only  was  his  art  exquisite,  but 
his  philosophy  of  his  art  was  as  unique,  assertive, 
and  prodigious  in  contempt  for  his  predecessors, 
as  that  of  Walt  Whitman.  I  have  never  read  any- 
thing about  any  art  more  sheer  and  startlmg  in 
its  kind  than  Poe's  essay  on  *'The  Philosophy  of 
Composition";  and  nothing  more  energetically 
opposite  to  Walt  Whitman  could  possibly  be  de- 
vised.   To  convey  the  flavor  of  the  contrast,  I 


IDEALS  OF  POETRY  207 

quote  these  sentences — inadequate  for  any  other 
purpose — from  Poe's  essay: 

"Most  writers — poets  in  especial — ^prefer  hav- 
ing it  understood  that  they  compose  by  a  species 
of  fine  frenzy — an  ecstatic  intuition;  and  would 
positively  shudder  at  letting  the  pubUc  take  a 
peep  behind  the  scenes  at  the  elaborate  and  vacil- 
lating crudities  of  thought,  at  the  true  purposes 
seized  only  at  the  last  moment,  at  the  innumer- 
able glimpses  of  idea  that  arrived  not  at  the  ma- 
turity of  full  view,  at  the  fully  matured  fancies 
discarded  in  despair  as  unmanageable,  at  the 
cautious  selections  and  rejections,  at  the  painful 
erasures  and  interpolations — ^in  a  word,  at  the 
wheels  and  pinions,  the  tackle  for  scene-shifting, 
the  step-ladders  and  demon-traps,  the  cock's 
feathers,  the  red  paint  and  the  black  patches.  .  .  . 

"For  my  own  part,  I  have  neither  sympathy 
with  the  repugnance  alluded  to,  nor  at  any  time 
the  least  difficulty  in  recaUing  to  mind  the  pro- 
gressive steps  of  any  of  my  compositions;  and, 
since  the  interest  of  an  analysis,  or  reconstruc- 
tion, such  as  I  have  considered  a  desideratum,  is 
quite  independent  of  any  real  or  fancied  interest 
in  the  thing  analyzed,  it  will  not  be  regarded  as  a 
breach  of  decorum  on  my  part  to  show  the  modus 
operandi  by  which  some  one  of  my  own  works 


208  IDEALS  OF  POETRY 

was  put  together.  I  select  'The  Raven'  as  most 
generally  known. 

"Let  us  dismiss,  as  irrelevant  to  the  poem  per 
se,  the  circumstance — or  say  the  necessity — 
which  in  the  first  place  gave  rise  to  the  intention 
of  composing  a  poem  that  should  suit  at  once  the 
popular  and  critical  taste. 

"We  commence,  then,  with  this  intention. 

"The  initial  consideration  was  that  of  extent. 
If  any  literary  work  is  too  long  to  be  read  at  one 
sitting,  we  must  be  content  to  dispense  with  the 
immensely  important  effect  derivable  from  unity 
of  impression;  for,  if  two  sittings  be  required,  the 
affairs  of  the  world  interfere,  and  everything  like 
totahty  is  at  once  destroyed.  .  .  . 

"My  next  thought  concerned  the  choice  of  an 
impression,  or  effect,  to  be  conveyed:  and  here  I 
may  as  well  observe  that,  throughout  the  con- 
struction, I  kept  steadily  in  view  the  design  of 
rendering  the  work  universally  appreciable.  I 
should  be  carried  too  far  out  of  my  immediate 
topic  were  I  to  demonstrate  a  point  upon  which  I 
have  repeatedly  insisted,  and  which  withTthe 
poetical  stands  not  in  the  sUghtest  need  of  dem- 
onstration— the  point,  I  mean,  that  Beauty  is 
the  sole  legitimate  province  of  the  poem.  .  .  . 

"  But  in  subjects  so  handled,  however  skilfully, 
or  with  however  vivid  an  array  of  incident,  there 


IDEALS  OF  POETRY  209 

is  always  a  certain  hardness  or  nakedness,  which 
repels  the  artistical  eye.  Two  things  are  invaria- 
bly required:  first,  some  amount  of  complexity, 
or  more  properly,  adaptation;  and,  second,  some 
amount  of  suggestiveness,  some  under-current, 
however  indefinite,  of  meaning.  It  is  this  latter, 
in  especial,  which  imparts  to  a  work  of  art  so  much 
of  that  richness  (to  borrow  from  colloquy  a  forci- 
ble term)  which  we  are  too  fond  of  confounding 
with  the  ideaV^ 

The  opposition  of  these  two  characters  and  at- 
titudes is  complete.  Upon  the  one  side  a  vast 
preoccupation  with  human  meaning  and  morals, 
with  health  and  the  common  reality  and  love  and 
democracy,  a  grand  contempt  for  beauty,  and  for 
the  effort  to  attract  or  gratify  a  reader  with  "ver- 
bal melody,"  a  contempt  for  everything  that 
savors  of  deliberate  technique  in  art.  Upon  the 
other  side  also  contempt — contempt  like  a  piece 
of  cold  analytical  steel  for  every  pretense  that 
the  technique  of  art  is  not  deliberate,  that  poets 
are  not  seeking  to  attract  and  gratify,  that  truth 
or  moral  or  meaning  instead  of  beauty  is  the  por- 
tent of  a  poem — a  disposition  to  seek  beauty  in 
unique  and  even  unhealthy  places,  a  lonely  aris- 
tocratic heart  of  pain,  and  a  preoccupation  with 
"verbal  melody"  never  before  or  since  equalled 


210  IDEALS  OF  POETRY 

in  poetry.  The  details  of  this  dijBFerence  are  fas- 
cinating, but  the  generalization  of  it  is  what  will 
illumine  the  modern  problems  about  poetry.  To 
Edgar  Allan  Poe  a  poem  was  an  objective  thing, 
to  Walt  Whitman  poetry  was  an  act  of  subjective 
expression.  Poe  would  take  sounds  and  mel- 
odies of  words  almost  actually  into  his  hands,  and 
carve  and  model  them  until  he  had  fonned  a 
beautiful  vessel,  and  he  would  take  emotions  and 
imaginations  out  of  his  heart  and  weave  and  in- 
lay them  in  that  vessel,  and  even  the  crimson 
out  of  his  blood,  and  finally  for  "enrichment"  he 
would  seek  out  in  his  mind  the  hue  of  some  mean- 
ing or  moral  to  pour  over  it  until  it  was  perfect. 
And  these  beautiful  vessels  he  would  set  forth  for 
view  and  purchase,  standing  aside  from  them 
like  a  creative  trader,  proud,  but  no  more  iden- 
tified with  them  than  as  though  he  had  made  them 
out  of  the  colors  of  shells.  To  Walt  Whitman  a 
poem  was  not  a  thing.  His  poetry  was  himself. 
His  meanings,  emotions,  experiences,  love  and 
wonder  of  life,  filled  him  and  he  overflowed  in 
language — ^without  "art,"  without  purpose  but  to 
communicate  his  being.  So  he  maintained.  His 
poem  was  never  an  object  to  him,  even  after  it 
had  flowed  full  and  he  sought  to  perfect  its  con- 
tours. His  emendations  were  not  often  objective 
improvements;  they  were  private  remodellings  to 


IDEALS  OF  POETRY  211 

make  the  language  a  more  direct  and  fluent  iden- 
tity with  what  he  considered  himself.  This  was 
the  task  upon  which  he  labored  as  the  poet  of 
democracy  and  social  love. 

Now,  it  is  not  merely  an  accident,  or  a  reflection 
upon  America  or  upon  human  nature,  that  Walt 
Whitman,  with  all  his  yearnings  over  the  aver- 
age American  and  his  offering  of  priesthood  and 
poetry  to  the  people,  should  remain  the  poet  of  a 
rather  esoteric  few,  whereas  Poe — even  with  the 
handful  of  poems  he  wrote — ^may  be  said  to 
be  acceptable  to  the  generality  of  men.  "The 
Raven,"  or  "Helen,"  or  "Annabelle  Lee,"  or  some 
sad  musical  echo  of  the  death  of  beauty,  might  be 
found  in  illuminated  covers  on  the  most "  average  " 
of  American  parlor  tables,  but  never  anything 
there  of  Walt  Whitman — unless  it  be  "Captain, 
My  Captain !"  the  one  rather  weak  metrical  poem 
he  deigned  to  write.  And  there  is  something 
deeply  and  really  pathetic  in  this  fact,  and  some- 
thing which  only  an  adequate  science  of  verse  can 
explain.  For  the  emotions  and  the  meanings  of 
Walt  Whitman's  poetry  are  actually  the  ones 
that  interest  simple  and  thoughtful  people  who 
have  leisure  to  feel.  His  realizations  of  life  would 
be  acceptable  and  be  honored,  as  much  at  least 
as  great  art  is  ever  honored,  by  the  "divine  aver- 
age," if  they  had  been  conveyed,  as  Poe's  were. 


212  IDEALS  OF  POETRY 

in  vessels  of  light,  which  would  make  them  ob- 
jective, and  from  which  they  might  brim  over 
with  excess  of  subjective  meaning  and  emotion. 

I  do  not  mean  to  express  a  wish  that  Walt  Whit- 
man had  conveyed  them  so,  or  the  opinion  that  he 
could  have  been  a  more  stupendous  poetic  and 
moral  hero  of  nature  by  writing  otherwise  than  he 
did.  His  propulsive  determination  to  put  forth 
in  this  facile  nineteenth-century  culture,  sweet 
with  the  decay  and  light  with  the  remnant  fineries 
of  feudal  grandeur,  the  original,  vast,  unfinished 
substance  of  man,  was  a  phenomenon  like  the 
rising  of  a  volcanic  continent  amid  ships  on  the 
sea.  No  word  but  the  words  in  his  book  can 
portray  the  magnitude  of  his  achievement;  no 
critic  but  Envy  could  judge  it  except  as  itself  and 
by  its  own  standard.  But  as  a  prophetic  exam- 
ple of  the  poems  of  the  future,  and  especially  the 
poems  of  democracy  and  social  love,  it  suffers  a 
weakness — ^the  weakness  that  Walt  Whitman's 
character  suffered.  It  is  egocentric  and  a  little 
inconsiderate  of  the  importance  of  other  people. 
Walt  Whitman  composed  wonderful  passages 
about  universal  social  love,  but  he  could  not  be 
the  universal  poet  exactly  because  he  was  not 
social  enough.  He  was  not  humble  enough  to  be 
social.  The  rebel  egoism  of  democracy  was  in 
him  the  lordly  and  compelling  thing,  and  though 


IDEALS  OF  POETRY  213 

his  love  for  the  world  was  prodigious,  it  was  not  ', 

the  kind  of  love  that  gives  attention  instinctively  ; 

to  the  egoism  of  others.  i 

There  may  be  no  grand  passion  for  the  idea,  but 
there  is  a  natural  companionship  with  the  fact  of 
"democracy,"  in  Poe's  statement  that  he  "kept 
steadily  in  view  the  design  of  rendering  the  work 
universally  appreciable,"  and  that  statement  more 
characteristically  distinguishes  his  attitude  from 
Walt  Whitman's  than  the  different  ways  they  had 
of  talking  about  beauty.  All  poets  who  mould 
their  poems  objectively,  even  though  they  may 
conceive  themselves  to  be  utterly  alone  with 
beauty,  are  really  in  social  communion  with  hu- 
manity. For  that  is  what  the  word  objective 
means.  An  object,  or  as  we  say,  a  "thing,"  dif- 
fers from  other  elements  of  our  experience  only 
in  that  it  can  be  experienced  in  the  same  form  at 
different  times  and  by  different  persons.  And  for 
an  object  to  be  beautiful  is  for  it  to  hold  value  in 
itself,  so  that  various  perceivers  may  come  from 
all  sides  and  find  it  there.  Therefore  one  who 
moulds  an  object  toward  external  perfection, 
however  sad  his  solitude,  enters  directly  into  the 
"universal  friendship"  toward  which  Walt  Whit- 
man directed  so  much  of  the  longing  of  his  words. 
One  who  pours  out  phrases  direct  from  his  emo- 
tion may  experience  a  relief  and  glory  that  im- 


214  IDEALS  OF  POETRY 

pKes  listeners,  and  he  may  win  listeners,  but  they 
will  each  rebuild  out  of  his  phrases  their  own  dif- 
ferent poem,  and  they  will  comprise  in  their 
number  only  those  endowed  with  the  special 
power  to  build  poems  out  of  phrases  poured  out. 
And  whatever  we  may  wish  were  true  of  the 
world,  it  is  not  true  that  the  majority  are  so  en- 
dowed. Therefore  the  poetry  that  is  highly  sub- 
jective is  almost  inevitably  the  poetry  of  a  few; 
and  the  "direct  expression  of  emotion"  achieves 
a  less  clear  and  general  social  communion  than 
the  embodiment  of  emotion  in  an  object  of  art. 

It  could  be  established,  I  beheve,  with  mechan- 
ical precision,  that  the  rh3i:hmic  values  most  cher- 
ished by  the  social  rebels  who  now  write  so  much 
"free  verse,"  are  values  practically  inconununi- 
cable  to  others,  and  absolutely  incommunicable 
by  the  method  usually  adopted,  that  of  printing 
words  on  a  page.  A  httle  of  that  icy  matter-of- 
fact  realism  with  which  Poe  used  to  scatter  the 
sweet  foggy  thoughts  of  the  literarious,  while  it 
might  not  affect  the  art  of  these  poets,  would 
surely  reduce  the  volume  of  what  they  have  to 
say  about  it.  For  instance,  here  is  the  answer  of 
one  of  them  to  an  assertion  that  the  line  division 
in  free  verse  is  "  arbitrary,"  and  that  if  we  copied 
one  of  these  long  poems  in  soUd  prose,  the  poet  him- 
self could  hardly  ever  divide  it  again  as  it  was: 


IDEALS  OF  POETRY  215 

"Free  verse  that  is  free  verse  is  not  arbitrary. 
Much  of  it  is,  of  course — so  are  many  canvases 
mere  splashy  imitations  of  Matisse.  But  there  is 
free  verse  that  resolves  itself  into  just  those  lines 
— a  little  more  subtly  than  sonnets  or  triolets — 
by  virtue  of  pauses,  of  heart-beats,  of  the  quick- 
ness or  slowness  of  your,  breath,  and  maybe  of 
your  pulse  itself.  ...  It  tries  to  give  the  rhythm 
value  of  those  hesitations,  those  quickenings  and 
slowings  of  the  flow  of  ideas,  the  flutterings — it 
is  closer  to  the  breath,  as  modern  music  and  mod- 
ern dance  are,  or  as  primitive  music  and  primitive 
dance  were." 

It  is  impossible  not  to  respond  to  such  asser- 
tions, for  we  know  in  ourselves  what  these  ex- 
quisite differential  experiences  are.  Any  one  who 
has  ever  written  love-letters — ^which  are  a  kind 
of  aboriginal  free  verse — ^knows  what  they  are. 
And  yet  I  believe  it  is  obvious,  if  not  demonstra- 
ble, that  most  of  them  are  too  individual  to  be 
communicated  even  to  a  lover.  Human  nature  is 
too  various  for  it  to  be  true  that  the  same  hesi- 
tations, the  same  quickenings  and  slowings  of  the 
flow  of  ideas,  flutterings  of  the  breath  or  pulse, 
will  reproduce  themselves  in  another  upon  the 
perception  of  the  same  visible  symbols.  And 
while  this  fact  may  make  the  art  of  composi- 
tion seem  a  little  monotonous,  it  is  better  that 


216  roEALS  OF  POETRY 

art  should  be  monotonous  than  that  the  world 
should.  And  it  would  be  a  monotonous  world  in 
which  different  people  were  so  much  alike,  or  we 
ourselves  so  much  alike  at  different  moments,  that 
these  minute  filigrees  of  feeling  should  be  alto- 
gether durable  and  capable  of  being  served  round 
in  paper  and  ink. 

There  are  values  of  verbal  rhythm  in  a  flow  of 
thought  and  feeling  which  exist  for  one  individual 
alone,  and  for  him  once  only.  There  are  other 
values  less  delicate  which  he  can  reproduce  in 
himself  at  will,  but  cannot  altogether  communi- 
cate  to  other  minds  whose  thoughts  and  feelings 
are  too  much  their  own.  There  are  other  values, 
still  less  delicate,  which  he  might  communicate 
by  vocal  utterance  and  rhythmic  gesture,  taking 
possession  as  it  were  of  the  very  pulse  and  respira- 
tion of  others.  But  poetry  which  is  composed 
for  publication  ought  to  occupy  itself  with  those 
rhythmic  values  which  may  be  communicated  to 
other  rhythmic  minds  through  the  printing  of 
words  on  a  page.  It  ought  to  do  this,  at  least,  if 
it  pretends  to  an  attitude  that  is  even  in  the  most 
minute  degree  social. 

A  mature  science  of  rhythm  might  be  imagined 
to  stride  into  the  room  where  these  poets  are  dis- 
cussing the  musical  values  of  their  verse,  seize 
two  or  three  of  the  most  "free"  and  subtle  among 


IDEALS  OF  POETRY  217 

them,  lock  them  into  separate  sound-proof  cham- 
bers, and  allow  them  to  read  one  of  their  favorite 
passages  into  the  ear  of  an  instrmnent  designed 
to  record  in  spatial  outline  the  pulsations  of 
vocal  accent.  It  is  safe  to  assert  that  there 
would  be  less  identity  in  the  actual  pulsations 
recorded  than  if  the  same  two  were  reading  a 
passage  of  highly  wrought  English  prose. ^  And 
the  reason  for  this  is  that  free  verse  imports  into 
English  prose  a  form  of  punctuation  that  is  ex- 
ceedingly gross  and  yet  absolutely  inconsequen- 
tial. Its  line  division  has  neither  a  metrical  nor  a 
logical  significance  that  exists  objectively.  It  can 
mean  at  any  time  anything  that  is  desirable  to 
the  whims,  or  needful  to  the  difficulties,  of  the 
reader  or  the  writer.  It  is  a  very  sign  and  instru- 
ment of  subjectivity.  To  incorporate  in  a  pas- 
sage of  printed  symbols  an  indeterminate  element 
so  marked  and  so  frequent  as  that,  is  to  say  to 
the  reader — "Take  the  passage  and  organize  it 

*  This  statement  is  borne  out  by  Mr.  William  Morrison 
Patterson's  account  of  the  records  of  Amy  Lowell's  reading 
of  her  poems  in  his  laboratory.  It  constitutes  the  preface 
of  the  second  edition  of  his  book,  "The  Rhythm  of  Prose'* 
— a  book  which,  upon  the  true  basis  of  experimentation, 
analyzes  and  defines  convincingly  for  the  first  time  the  na- 
ture of  rhythmical  experience,  and  the  manner  in  which  it 
is  derived  by  the  reader  both  from  prose  and  metrical  po- 
etry. Until  it  is  amplified  or  improved  by  further  investi- 
gation, this  book  will  surely  be  the  basis  of  every  scientific 
discussion  of  the  questions  involved  here. 


218  IDEALS  OF  POETRY 

into  whatever  rhythmical  pattern  may  please 
yourself."  And  that  is  what  the  reader  of  free 
verse  usually  does,  knowing  that  if  he  comes  into 
any  great  diflBculty,  he  can  make  a  full  stop  at 
the  end  of  some  line,  and  shift  the  gears  of  his 
rh\i:hm  altogether.  And  since  it  is  possible  for 
one  who  is  rh}i:hmically  gifted  to  organize  any 
indeterminate  series  of  impressions  whatever  into  an 
acceptable  rhythm,  he  frequently  produces  a  very 
enjoyable  piece  of  music,  which  he  attributes  to 
the  author  and,  having  made  it  himself,  is  not 
unable  to  admire.  Thus  a  good  many  poets  who 
could  hardly  beat  a  going  march  on  a  base  drum, 
are  enabled  by  the  gulUbiUty  and  talent  of  their 
readers  to  come  forward  in  this  kiad  of  writing  as 
musicians  of  special  and  elaborate  skill.  The 
"freedom"  that  it  gives  them  is  not  a  freedom  to 
build  rh;yi:hms  that  are  impossible  in  prose,  but  a 
freedom  from  the  necessity  to  build  actual  and 
continuous  rhythms.  Free  verse  avails  itself  of 
the  rhythmic  appearance  of  poetry,  and  it  avoids 
the  extreme  rhythmic  difficulties  of  prose,  and  so 
it  will  certainly  live  as  a  supremely  convenient 
way  to  write,  among  those  not  too  strongly  ap- 
pealed to  by  the  greater  convenience  of  not  writ- 
ing. But  as  an  object  of  the  effort  of  ambitious 
artists  I  cannot  believe  it  will  widely  survive  the 


IDEALS  OF  POETRY  219 

knowledge  that  it  is  merely  a  convenience,  a 
form  of  mmnble  and  indetermination  in  their 
art. 

Walt  Whitman,  however  he  may  have  been  de- 
ceived about  the  social  and  democratic  character 
of  his  form,  was  not  deceived,  as  the  modern 
eulogists  of  free  verse  are,  about  its  subtlety.  He 
thought  that  he  had  gained  in  volume  and  direct- 
ness of  communion,  but  he  knew  that  he  was  dis- 
carding subtlety,  discarding  in  advance  all  those 
beautiful  and  decadent  wonders  of  microscopic 
and  morbid  audacity  that  developed  in  France 
among  the  admirers  of  Poe.  The  modern  disciples 
of  his  form,  however,  are  materially  of  Poe's  per- 
suasion, and  like  to  believe  that  they  have  in  free 
verse  an  instrument  expressly  fitted  for  the  com- 
munication of  those  wonders,  and  of  the  most 
delicate  modulations  of  that  "verbal  melody" 
that  Whitman  scorned.  In  this,  from  the  true 
standpoint  of  criticism,  Whitman  has  a  command- 
ing advantage  over  them,  and  what  can  be  said 
of  free  verse  in  general  cannot  be  said  of  his 
poems.  He  did  achieve  the  predominant  thing 
that  he  aimed  to  achieve — ^he  made  his  poetry 
rough  and  artless  in  spite  of  his  fineness  and  art. 
He  made  it  like  the  universe  and  like  the  presence 
of  a  man.    In  that  triumph  it  will  stand.    In  that 


220  IDEALS  OF  POETRY 

character  it  will  mould  and  influence  the  litera- 
ture of  democracy,  because  it  will  mould  and  in- 
fluence all  literature  in  all  lands. 

"Who  touches  this  book  touches  a  man." 

There  is,  however,  another  ideal  of  poetry  that 
Walt  Whitman  confused  with  this  one,  and  that  he 
no  more  exemplified  in  his  form  than  he  exem- 
plified democratic  and  social  communion.  And 
this  ideal  is  predominant  too  in  the  minds  of  his 
modern  followers.  It  is  the  ideal  of  being  natural, 
of  being  primitive,  dismissing  "refinements"  and 
the  tricks  of  Hterary  sophistication.  He  wanted 
his  poetry  to  sound  with  nature  and  the  untutored 
heart  of  humanity.  It  was  in  the  radiance  of  this 
desire  that  he  spoke  of  rhythmical  prose  as  a  "  vast 
diviner  heaven,"  toward  which  poetry  would 
move  in  its  future  development  in  America.  Prose 
seemed  diviner  to  him  because  it  seemed  more 
simple,  more  large  with  candor  and  directness. 
But  here  again  a  cool  and  clear  science  will  show 
that  his  nature  led  him  in  a  contrary  direction 
from  its  ideal.  The  music  of  prose  is  only  dis- 
similar to  that  of  poetry  in  its  complexity,  its 
subtle  and  refined  dissimulation  of  the  funda- 
mental monotonous  metre  that  exists,  either  ex- 
pressed or  implied,  in  the  heart  of  all  rhythmical 
experience.    Persons  who  can  read  the  rhythm  of 


IDEALS  OF  POETRY  221 

prose  can  do  so  because  they  have  m  their  own 
breast,  or  intellect,  a  subdued  or  tacit  perpetual 
standard  pulse-beat,  around  which  by  various  in- 
stinctive mathematical  tricks  of  substitution  and 
syncopation  they  so  arrange  the  accents  of  the  ut- 
tered syllables  that  they  fall  in  with  its  measure, 
and  become  one  with  it,  increasing  its  momentum 
and  its  effect  of  entrancement  upon  the  nerves  and 
body.  There  is  no  rhythm  without  this  metrical 
basis,  no  value  in  rhythm  comparable  to  the 
trance  that  its  thrilling  monotony  engenders.  Its 
undulations  are  akin  to  the  intrinsic  character  of 
neural  motion,  and  that  is  why,  almost  as  though 
it  were  a  chemical  thing — a  stimulant  and  nar- 
cotic— it  takes  possession  of  our  state  of  being  and 
controls  it. 

Poetry  only  naively  acknowledges  this  ecstatic 
monotony  that  lives  in  the  heart  of  all  rhythm, 
brings  it  out  into  the  light,  and  there  openly 
weaves  upon  it  the  patterns  of  melodic  sound. 
Poetry  is  thus  the  more  natural,  and  both  his- 
torically and  psychologically,  the  more  primitive 
of  the  two  arts.  It  is  the  more  simple.  Metre,  and 
even  rhyme — which  is  but  a  colored,  light  drum- 
beat, accentuating  the  metre — are  not  "orna- 
ments" or  "refinements"  of  something  else  which 
may  be  called  "rhythmical  speech."  They  are 
the  heart  of  rhythmical  speech  expressed  and  ex- 


222  IDEALS  OF  POETRY 

posed  with  a  perfectly  childlike  and  candid  gran- 
deur. Prose  is  the  refinement.  Prose  is  the 
sophisticated  and  studio  accomplishment — a  thing 
that  vast  numbers  of  people  have  not  the  fineness 
of  endowment  or  cultivation  either  to  write  or 
read.  Prose  is  a  civilized  sublimation  of  poetry, 
in  which  the  original  healthy  intoxicant  note  of 
the  tom-tom  is  so  laid  over  with  fine  traceries  of 
related  sound,  that  it  can  no  longer  be  identified 
at  all  except  by  the  analytical  eye  of  science. 

Walt  Whitman  was  not  really  playful  and  child- 
like enough  to  go  back  to  nature.  His  poetry  was 
less  primitive  and  savage  than  it  was  superhu- 
man and  sublime.  His  emotions  were  as  though 
they  came  to  him  through  a  celestial  telescope. 
There  is  something  more  properly  savage — some- 
thing at  least  truly  barbarous — ^in  a  poem  like 
Poe's  "Bells."  And  in  Poe's  insistence  upon 
"beauty"  as  the  sole  legitimate  province  of  the 
poem — ^beauty,  which  he  defines  as  a  special  and 
dispassionate  "excitement  of  the  soul" — ^he  is 
nearer  to  the  mood  of  the  snake  dance.  Poetry 
was  to  him  a  deliberate  perpetration  of  ecstasy. 
And  one  can  see  in  reading  his  verses  how  he  was 
attuned  to  sway  and  quiver  to  the  mere  syllabic 
singing  of  a  kettledrum,  until  his  naked  visions 
grew  more  intense  and  lovely  than  the  passions 
and  real  meanings  of  his  life.   It  is  actually  primi- 


IDEALS  OF  POETRY  223 

tive,  as  well  as  childlike,  to  play  with  poetry  in 
this  intense  and  yet  unsanctimonious  way  that 
Poe  did,  and  Baudelaire  too,  and  Swinburne. 
Play  is  nearer  to  the  heart  of  nature  than  aspira- 
tion. It  is  healthier  perhaps  too,  and  more  to  the 
taste  of  the  future,  than  priesthood.  I  think  the 
essence  of  what  we  call  classical  in  an  artist's  at- 
titude is  his  quite  frank  acknowledgment  that — 
whatever  great  things  may  come  of  it — ^he  is  at 
play.  The  art  of  the  Athenians  was  objective 
and  overt  about  being  what  is  it,  because  the 
Athenians  were  educated,  as  all  free  men  should 
be,  for  play.  They  were  making  things;  and  the 
eagerness  of  their  hearts  flowed  freely  out  like  a 
child's  through  their  eyes  upon  the  things  that 
they  made.  That  pearl  of  adult  degeneration,  the 
self,  was  very  Kttle  cultivated  in  Athens;  the  "ar- 
tistic temperament"  was  unborn;  and  sin,  and  the 
perpetual  yearning  beyond  of  Christians,  had  not 
been  thought  of.  A  little  group  of  isolated  and 
exclusive  miracles  had  not  reduced  all  the  true 
and  current  glories  of  life  to  a  status  of  ignobiHty, 
so  that  every  great  thing  must  contain  in  itself 
intimations  of  otherness.  The  Athenians  were 
radiantly  willing,  without  any  cosmical  prepara- 
tion or  blare  of  moral  resolve,  to  let  the  constella- 
tions stay  where  they  are.  It  was  their  custom  to 
"loaf  and  invite  their  souls,"  to  be  "satisfied — 


224  IDEALS  OF  POETRY 

see,  dance,  laugh,  sing.**  They  were  so  maturely 
naive  that  they  would  hardly  understand  what 
Walt  Whitman,  with  his  declarations  of  animal 
independence,  was  trying  to  recover  from.  And 
so  it  is  by  way  of  their  happy  and  sun-loved  city 
that  we  can  most  surely  go  back  to  nature. 

And  when  we  have  arrived  at  a  mood  that  is 
really  and  childly  natural — a  mood  that  will  play, 
even  with  aspiration,  and  will  spontaneously  make 
out  of  interesting  materials  "things**  to  play  with, 
and  when  in  that  mood  we  give  our  interest  to 
the  materials  of  reality  in  our  own  time,  then  per- 
haps we  shall  find  that  we  have  arrived  also  at  a 
poetry  that  belongs  to  the  people.  For  people 
are,  in  the  depths  of  them  and  on  the  average,  as 
they  are  bom,  still  natural,  still  savage.  And 
there  is  no  doubt  that  nature  never  fashioned 
them  to  work  harder,  or  be  more  serious,  or  filled 
with  self-conscious  purports,  than  was  necessary. 
She  meant  them  to  live  and  flow  out  upon  the 
world  with  the  bright  colors  of  their  interest. 
And  it  will  seem  rather  a  fever  in  the  light  of  uni- 
versal history,  this  hot  subjective  meaningfulness 
of  everything  we  modern  occidentals  value.  The 
poets  and  the  poet-painters  of  ancient  China 
knew  that  all  life  and  nature  is  so  sacred  with 
the  miracle  of  being  that  only  the  lucid  line  and 
color  is  needed  to  command  an  immortal  rever- 


IDEALS  OF  POETRY  225 

ence.  They  loved  perfection  devoutly,  as  it  will 
rarely  be  loved,  but  they  too,  with  their  gift  of 
delicate  freedom  in  kinship  with  nature,  were  at 
play.  And  in  Japan  even  to-day — surviving  from 
that  time — there  is  a  form  of  poetry  that  is  ob- 
jective and  childlike,  a  making  of  toys,  or  of  ex- 
quisite metrical  gems  of  imaginative  realization, 
and  this  is  the  only  poetry  in  the  world  that  is 
truly  popular,  and  is  loved  and  cultivated  by  a 
whole  nation. 

If  with  this  pagan  and  oriental  love  for  the 
created  thing — ^the  same  love  that  kept  a  light  in 
Poe's  sombre  heart — ^we  enter  somewhat  irrever- 
ently into  Walt  Whitman's  volume,  seeking  our 
own  treasure  and  not  hesitating  to  remove  it 
from  its  bed  of  immortal  slag,  we  do  find  poems 
in  new  forms  of  exquisite  and  wonderful  definition. 
Sometimes  for  the  length  of  one  or  two  or  three 
lines,  and  occasionally  for  a  stanza,  and  once  for 
the  whole  poem — "When  I  heard  at  the  close  of 
the  day" — Walt  Whitman  seems  to  love  and 
achieve  the  carved  concentration  of  image  and 
emotion,  the  definite  and  thrilling  chime  of  syl- 
lables along  a  chain  that  begins  and  ends  and  has 
a  native  way  of  uttering  itself  to  all  minds  that 
are  in  time.  He  seems,  without  losing  that  large 
grace  of  freedom  from  the  pose  and  elegance  of 
words  in  a  book,  which  was  his  most  original  gift 


226  IDEALS  OF  POETRY 

to  the  world,  to  possess  himself  of  the  mood  that 
is  truly  primitive,  and  social,  and  intelligible  to 
the  hearts  of  simple  people — ^the  mood  that  loves 
with  a  curious  wonder  the  poised  and  perfect  ex- 
istence of  a  thing. 

HUSHED  BE  THE  CAMPS 

Hush'd  be  the  camps  today; 
And,  soldiers,  let  us  drape  our  war-worn  weapons; 
And  each  with  musing  soul  retire,  to  celebrate. 
Our  dear  conmiander's  death. 

No  more  for  him  life's  stormy  conflicts; 

Nor  victory,  nor  defeat — no  more  time's  dark  events. 

Charging  like  ceaseless  clouds  across  the  sky. 


RECONCILIATION 

Word  over  all,  beautiful  as  the  sky  I 

Beautiful  that  war,  and  all  its  deeds  of  carnage,  must  in 

time  be  utterly  lost; 
That  the  hands  of  the  sisters  Death  and  Night,  incessantly 

softly  wash  again,  and  ever  again,  this  soil'd  world. . . . 


These  sculptural  sentences,  with  their  rhythmic 
and  still  clarity  of  form,  if  they  had  been  the  end 
and  essence  of  his  art,  and  not  only  a  by-accident 
of  inevitable  genius,  might  have  led  the  way,  not 
perhaps  to  a  great  national  poetry  for  America, 
but  beyond  that  into  something  international  and 


IDEALS  OF  POETRY  227 

belonging  to  the  universe  of  man.  The  step  for- 
ward from  them  would  not  have  been  toward  a 
greater  sprawling  and  subjectifying  of  rhythmic 
and  poetic  character,  but  toward  an  increasing 
objective  perfection  which  should  still  cling  to 
the  new  and  breathless  thing,  the  presence  of  one 
who  lives  and  speaks  his  heart  naturally.  I  chose 
them,  not  only  because  they  are  among  the  most 
musical  and  imaginative  lines  that  Walt  Whit- 
man wrote,  but  also  because  in  bringing  a  mood 
that  is  calm  and  a  lulling  of  wind  in  the  world's 
agonies  of  hate,  they  show  themselves  to  be  deep. 
And  so  it  will  not  be  thought  that  when  I  say  the 
poet  of  democracy  will  be  a  child  who  is  at 
play  with  the  making  of  things,  I  desire  to  nar- 
row the  range  and  poignancy  of  the  things  he  will 
make.  He  will  be  free,  and  he  will  move  with  a 
knowing  and  profound  mind  among  all  the  ex- 
periences and  the  dreams  of  men.  But  to  what- 
ever heights  of  rhapsody,  or  moral  aspiration,  or 
now  unimaginable  truth,  he  may  come,  he  will 
come  as  a  child,  whose  clear  eyes  and  deliberate 
creative  purposes  are  always  appropriate  and 
never  to  be  apologized  for,  because  they  are  the 
purposes  of  nature. 


NOTES 


NOTES 

Page  6 
In  an  essay  called  "The  Will  to  Live,"  and  published 
in  the  Journal  of  Philosophy,  Psychology  and  Scientific 
Methods  (Vol.  XIV,  No.  4),  I  discussed  the  scientific  basis 
and  implication  of  the  statement  that  there  is  in  all  animal 
life  such  an  impulse,  or  "general  innate  tendency,"  as  I  have 
here  described.  I  wish  that  people  who  feel  sceptical  of 
my  psychology  at  this  point  would  read  that  essay. 

Page  11 
The  quotation  is  from|Robert  Browning's  "Saul." 

Page  12 
Irving  King  in  "  The  Psychology  of  Child  Development," 
p.  147,  records  an  instance  similar  to  the  one  I  describe. 
He  also,  on  p.  174,  shows  very  conclusively  that  what  we 
call  in  children  "the  instinct  of  imitation"  is  not  that,  in 
any  intelligible  sense,  but  a  desire  to  enlarge,  and  intensify 
(or  as  he  says,  because  he  writes  from  a  purely  practical 
view-point,  define)  their  own  experience.  To  put  it  in  their 
own  words,  they  are  always  wanting  to  "  see  what  it  feels 
like."  And  this  is  not  merely  the  instinct  of  curiosity 
either,  for  after  they  know  what  it  feels  like,  they  still  want 
to  feel  it  again.  Indeed,  the  instinct  of  curiosity  itself  may, 
like  other  feelings,  become  the  object  of  this  desire.  "The 
child  is  curious,"  says  M.  ClaparMe  in  his  "Psychologie 
de  TEnfant,"  "for  the  pleasure  of  being  cm-ious;  the  scholar 
is  curious  in  order  to  know."  But  any  work  upon  the 
psychology  of  children  will  more  or  less  unconsciously  bear 
out  the  statement  that  children  are  more  interested  in 
experience  for  its  own  sake  than  adults. 

Page  13 
The  quotation  is  from  Keats's  "Ode  to  Melancholy." 

Page  15 
The  quotation  is  from  Wordsworth's  sonnet, "The  World 
Is  Too  Much  With  Us." 

231 


232  NOTES 

Page  19 

The  quotation  is  from  Walt  Whitman's  "Crossing 
Brooklyn  Ferry." 

Page  23 

I  have  mentioned  the  three  classic  theories  of  the  origin 
of  speech.  That  they  should  have  appeared  as  opposing 
theories,  and  begot  volumes,  is  an  example  of  that  puerility 
of  the  academic  intellect,  and  the  foolishness  which  infects 
both  science  and  conversation,  of  supposing  that  a  single 
generalization  is  always  possible  and  is  the  form  of  truth. 
Probably  the  majority  of  words  never  originated  in  any  of 
these  pretty  ways.  Otto  Jespersen  in  his  "Progress  in 
Language"  (chap.  IX)  has  pointed  out  that  simulta- 
neous occurrence,  however  accidental,  is  enough  to  es- 
tablish a  connection  between  syllables  and  experiences. 
Granted,  therefore,  a  savage  with  excess  energy  to  ex- 
haust in  vocal  exercises  as  he  goes  along,  and  you  have 
adequate  conditions  for  the  birth  either  of  practical  or 
poetic  names. 

Suppose  that  he  happens  to  be  singing  ta-ra-ra-ra  boom- 
de-aye  when  he  is  splitting  the  kindlings  this  morning;  it 
may  well  happen  that  he  sings  the  same  syllables  at  the 
same  time  to-morrow  morning,  and  so  on,  until  ta-ra-ra 
comes  to  "mean"  split-the-kindlings. 

Page  24 

In  English  a  struggle  for  survival  has  long  raged,  and  is 
raging,  among  these  verb-forms.  And  of  late  years  the 
battle  is  not  to  the  strong,  but  to  the  handy — the  loss  of 
those  old  forms  being  one  of  the  poetic  sorrows  of  our 
tongue,  though  it  would  be  expeditious  and  an  act  of  prac- 
tical good  sense,  I  suppose,  to  wipe  out  the  whole  tribe. 

We  might  examine  the  character  of  those  strong  forms 
which  survived,  against  those  which  perished,  and  see  if 
it  were  not  special  poetic  strength  which  determined  the 


NOTES  233 

issue  in  many  cases,  and  thus  perhaps  we  could  oppose 
the  tendency  of  scholars  nowadays  to  impute  everything 
that  has  happened  in  language  to  a  desire  to  make  it 
practical. 

As  examples  of  that  tendency  I  select  these  quota- 
tions: 

"To  no  other  law  than  that  of  economy  of  utterance 
have  any  of  the  phenomena  of  phonetic  change  been  found 
traceable  (though  it  is  also  to  be  noted  that  some  phe- 
nomena have  not  hitherto  been  successfully  brought  under 
it,  and  that  the  way  of  efifecting  this  is  still  unclear)." 
— William  Dwight  Whitney  (Article  on  "Philology"  in 
the  "Encyclopsedia  Britannica"). 

The  only  test  of  the  merits  of  languages  that  is  of 
any  value  is  "the  practical  interests  of  the  speaking  (or 
talking)  community."  —  Otto  Jespbrsbn  ("Progress  in 
Language"). 

Page  25 

The  word  rakehell  is  a  poetic  "corruption"  of  the  ad- 
jective rakel,  meaning  rash.  "Train  oil,"  a  degeneration 
from  Thrdne  or  "tear-like"  oil,  may  serve  as  an  example 
of  a  practical  corruption. 

Corruption  in  language  is  often  almost  as  valuable  as 
creation.  Out  in  Colorado  there  is  a  winding  river  which 
some  starving  first-settler,  a  Frenchman,  caUed  the  Pur- 
gataire.  But  that  name  has  no  appropriateness  for  the 
prosperous  citizens  who  now  dwell  along  its  coils;  for  them 
it  is  the  Pickettoire.    The  name  is  still  poetic. 

Skeat  says  of  ghastly ^  "the  h  has  been  inserted  for  no 
very  good  reason."  But  to  those  who  taste  the  flavors  of 
words  it  has  been  inserted,  as  also  in  ghost,  for  the  best 
of  all  reasons,  namely,  that  it  makes  the  word  suggest 
its  object.  It  is  a  kind  of  strange,  breathless  letter 
there — essentially  unpronounced,  unmuscularized,  super- 
natural. 


234  NOTES 

Our  ancestors  are  being  scolded  by  the  simplified  spell- 
ing board  for  such  liberties  as  this.  They  took  an  h  out 
of  gossip  and  inserted  one  into  ghost  1  This  is  highly 
"irregular,"  "impractical,"  and  "unscientific,"  but  it 
shows  that  they  knew  in  their  inmiediate  experience  the 
essential  difference  between  a  gossip  and  a  ghost,  and  they 
could  convey  this  in  the  most  delicate  poetry,  and  they 
cared  to.  Is  the  lack  in  them,  or  in  the  simplified  spelling 
board? 

Page  26 

Bluff,  crib,  grad,  flunk,  are  slang  words  of  purely  prac- 
tical value. 

Swelled  head,  brass,  fax:e,  paint  the  town  red,  have  a  bee  in 
your  bonnet,  down  and  out,  a  mossback,  a  jonah,  are  poetic, 
with  the  usual  tincture  of  humor.  To  have  a  bee  in  your 
bonnet  is  a  metaphor  which  occurs,  if  I  remember  rightly, 
as  the  basis  of  a  stanza  of  one  of  Bums's  poems. 

Page  50 

The  quotations  are  from  Keats's  early  poem,  "I  Stood 
Tip-toe  Upon  a  Little  Hill,"  except  "The  Grey  Fly," 
which  is  from  Milton's  "Lycidas,"  and  "Million-footed 
Manhattan,"  which  is  from  Walt  Whitman. 

Page  63 

It  has  been  customary  to  divide  comparison,  or  the 
association  of  ideas  as  it  is  called,  into  two  kinds — asso- 
ciation by  resemblance  and  association  by  contiguity. 
That  this  is  not  a  fundamental  difference,  but  that  both 
kinds  of  association  are  instances  of  the  redintegration  of 
a  past  experience  in  memory  according  to  the  laws  of 
habit,  is  one  of  the  opinions  of  Aristotle,  rediscovered  by 
modern  psychology.  In  a  contribution  to  the  Journal  of 
Philosophy,  Psychology  and  Scientific  Methods,  vol.  VII, 
no.  6,  entitled  "To  Reconsider  the  Association  of  Ideas,"  I 


NOTES  235 

tried  to  show  that  this  doctrine  even  as  it  now  stands 
is  not  satisfactory  and  that  its  tenninology  needs  revis- 
ing. I  do  not  believe  that  I  reached  the  bottom  of  the 
question  in  that  article,  but  if  any  one  cares  to  read  it,  he 
will  find  there  some  indication  of  how  I  came  to  treat 
comparison  as  essentially  an  interruption,  and  explain  its 
value  to  realization  in  the  way  I  have. 

Page  54 

In  this  section  I  may  appear  to  give  more  standing  to 
the  purely  practical  theory  of  the  origin  of  consciousness, 
than  I  wish  to.  I  believe,  as  I  stated  in  chapter  I  and  at 
the  beginning  of  chapter  II,  that  the  impulse  toward  con- 
sciousness for  its  own  sake,  is  fundamental.  And  I  may 
reconcile  what  I  said  then  with  what  I  say  here,  by  calling 
attention  to  the  fact  that  even  though  I  describe  our  life 
in  general  as  blindly  practical,  I  point  out  that  the  poets 
are  there,  seeking  to  arouse  us.  They  too  must  have  their 
explanation.  The  poetic  in  each  of  us  must  have  its  ex- 
planation. And  I  believe  the  only  explanation  it  can  have 
is  the  placing  of  it  equal  with  the  onward  impulse,  as  an 
original  and  arbitrary  quality  of  life. 

Page  56 

If  "similarity"  were  the  object  of  attraction  in  a  po- 
etic comparison,  we  should  find  pleasure  in  those  pedan- 
tic similes  in  which  various  points  of  resemblance  are 
brought  forward,  and  the  likeness  of  two  things  dwelt 
upon  at  length.  But  this  exploitation  of  similarity  itself 
is  a  thing  which  no  one  with  a  spark  of  true  poetry  in  him 
can  tolerate. 

Page  59 

I  need  not  explain  that  this  opinion  has  dominated  Eng- 
lish minds  ever  since  the  days  of  Elizabeth,  and  before. 
The  poet  makes  things,  says  Philip  Sidney,  "either  bet- 


236  NOTES 

ter  than  nature  bringeth  forth,  or,  quite  a  newe,  fonnes 
such  as  neuer  were  in  nature."  According  to  Francis  Bacon 
likewise,  the  great  virtue  of  poetry  is  that  it  does  not 
"buckle  and  bow"  the  mind  to  the  real  facts  of  experience. 
Endless  quotations  are  possible  to  this  same  effect:  that 
poetry  is  a  means  by  which  too  delicate  spirits  can  run 
away  from  the  terms  of  existence.  It  is  a  parlor  idea,  and 
every  great  poet  that  ever  lived  belies  it.  Milton  and 
Dante,  indeed,  are  supposed  to  have  made  supernatural 
ventures  into  a  realm  of  unreality,  or  at  least  a  world  of 
spirit,  simply  because  they  said  that  this  was  where  they 
were  going.  It  is  clear  enough  to  the  eye  of  analysis, 
however,  that  in  proportion  as  their  imaginative  passages 
are  great,  they  are  filled  with  the  material  colors  of  the  real 
world.  There  may  be  such  a  thing  as  pure  spirit,  but  a 
book  of  poems  is  the  last  place  in  which  it  will  be  found.  It 
will  be  found  in  Euclid  rather  than  Dante. 

Page  65 

The  quotation  is  from  Walt  Whitman's  "Passage  to 
India." 

Page  67 

The  Japanese  translations  are  taken,  for  the  most  part, 
from  a  book  by  Basil  Hall  Chamberlain,  called  "Japanese 
Poetry." 

Page  72 

Tlie  quotations  are  from  Walt  WTiitman's  "The  An- 
swerer" and  "Salut  au  Monde." 

Page  76 

This  definition  and  the  whole  modem  treatment  of 
"  figures  of  speech,  * '  is  perhaps  due  to  a  misunderstand- 
ing of  Aristotle's  classifications.  "Rhetoric"  meant  to 
Aristotle  the  forensic  art,  the  art  of  convincing  and  per- 


NOTES  237 

suading.  This  art  was  a  sub-chapter  of  logic,  in  which 
metaphors  (for  he  calls  all  these  things  metaphors)  have 
no  vital  place.  They  are  "ornaments"  merely.  Aristotle 
himself  recognized,  however  vaguely,  that  their  position 
in  poetic  writing  is  different,  and  he  never  intended  his 
rhetoric  for  a  general  Bible. 

Page  77 

This  kind  of  choice  is  called  "metonymy"  when  some 
adjunct  or  pervasive  quality  of  a  thing  is  named,  "synec- 
doche" when  a  definite  part.  But  if  you  substitute  the 
word  experience  for  thing  in  these  definitions,  the  distinc- 
tion between  metonymy  and  synecdoche  properly  disap- 
pears. 

In  defining  synecdoche  as  "naming  a  part  for  the  whole," 
it  is  customary  to  add  "or  sometimes  the  whole  for  a  part." 
But  I  think  in  every  example  which  can  be  given  of  the 
latter,  it  will  be  found  that  the  name  of  the  whole  either 
offers  a  more  single  and  somehow  apprehensible  focus  of 
attention,  or  stimulates  the  imagination  by  the  very 
strangeness  of  its  use,  or  else  is  not  poetic  at  all,  but 
merely  a  less  specific  way  of  talking  than  the  reader  ex- 
pected. 

Aristotle  made  the  peculiar  mistake  of  including  this 
use  of  a  general  term  instead  of  a  specific,  among  his 
"metaphors."  (Poetics,  chap.  XXI,  4).  Transferring  a 
name  from  genus  to  species,  he  calls  it,  and  gives  as  an 
example  from  the  Odyssey: 

"Secure  in  yonder  port  my  vessel  stands." 

"For  to  be  moored,"  he  says,  "is  a  species  of  standing." 
I  do  not  know  what  the  associative  flavors  of  the  words  are 
in  Greek,  but  if  the  one  is  really  by  grammatical  definition 
a  species  of  the  other,  then  there  is  no  transfer  of  a  word 
"out  of  its  proper  signification."    There  is  simply  general 


238  NOTES 

instead  of  specific  language,  as  when  we  say  "an  animal" 
instead  of  "a  dog." 

Perhaps  it  is  mainly  out  of  a  persistent,  and  generally 
well-founded,  reverence  for  Aristotle,  that  this  secondary 
definition  of  synecdoche  survives.  There  surely  are  cases 
when,  for  accidental  reasons  either  in  the  word  or  the 
thing,  it  is  more  vivid  to  name  the  whole  than  the  part. 
"The  west  warns  us,"  appears  to  me  more  poetic  than 
**The  sunset  warns  us."  But  I  think  this,  and  other  cases 
of  the  kind,  are  actually  (when  we  substitute  experience 
for  thing)  selections  of  a  vivid  part. 

Page  78 

"  Pleonasm  **  and  "  Tautology  "  are  two  other  so-called 
"figures"  which  find  their  explanation  here.  "Saying  the 
same  thing  over  again"  is  supposed  to  be  a  peculiar  lit- 
erary delight  upon  many  occasions.  But  when  this  is  not 
exact  repetition,  it  is  usually  one  of  the  manifestations  of 
poetic  choice — an  experience  being  indicated  in  general 
first,  and  then  the  chosen  attribute  called  forth. 

Page  82 

The  quotations  are  from  the  Book  of  Psalms. 

Page  87 

Perhaps  the  intrinsic  natm-e  and  motive  of  all  poetic 
utterance  is  clearest  proven  in  the  spontaneous  answer  of 
one  of  these  Indians  when  he  was  asked,  "How  do  you 
make  your  songs?"  "When  I  am  herding  my  sheep,"  he 
said,  "or  away  in  the  fields,  and  I  see  something  that  I  like 
— then  I  sing  about  it."  Another  compiled  a  commentary 
upon  his  song,  so  that  its  "inner  meaning"  might  be  known 
to  the  hearer,  and  this  is  what  he  said:  "My  song  is  about 
butterflies  flying  over  the  cornfields  and  over  the  beans. 
One  butterfly  is  running  after  the  other  like  the  hunt,  and 
there  are  many." 


NOTES  239 

Let  us  hear  the  song,  for  it  is  one  of  the  few  whose 
poetry  is  all  within  the  perception  of  a  person  who  has 
been  civilized. 

"Yellow  butterflies, 
Over  the  blossoming  virgin  com, 

With  pollen-painted  faces, 
Chase  one  another  in  brilliant  throng. 

"Blue  butterflies, 
Over  the  blossoming  virgin  beans, 

With  pollen-painted  faces, 
Chase  one  another  in  brilliant  streams. 

"Over  the  blossoming  com, 
Over  the  virgin  com, 

Wild  bees  hum, 
Over  the  blossoming  beans, 
Over  the  virgin  beans, 

Wild  bees  hum. 

"Over  your  fields  of  growing  com. 

All  day  shall  hang  the  thimder-cloud; 
Over  your  fields  of  growing  com. 
All  day  shall  come  the  rushing  rain." 

All  these  examples  are  taken  from  "The  Indians*  Book," 
by  Natalie  Curtis. 

Page  88 

The  pleasure  of  attributing  supremely  poetic  language  to 
an  occult  inspiration,  will  set  many  romantic  poeple  who 
never  wrote  poetry,  against  this  description  of  the  poet's 
mind.  But  for  my  part  I  see  no  gain,  even  for  intelligent 
romance,  in  imputing  these  qualities  to  the  intuitive  or  sub- 
liminal mind.  They  are  just  the  same  things  there,  that 
they  are  in  the  deliberate  mind.  We  cannot  make  a  natural 
thing  supernatural  by  showing  that  it  is  not  expressly 
directed  at  every  step  by  a  self-conscious  faculty.    So 


240  NOTES 

while  we  recognize  that  these  gifts  of  the  poet  are  often  sub- 
conscious, we  need  not  therefore  hesitate  to  say  that  they 
are  what  they  are.  And  to  this  we  may  add  that  if  biog- 
raphy tells  us  anything,  it  tells  us  that  the  greatest 
poets  and  artists  were  in  a  high  degree  self-conscious  and 
deliberate,  as  well  as  exalted,  in  their  creative  moments. 

Page  90 
The  quotation  is  from  Keats's  "Endymion." 

Page  92 

This  twofold  function  of  rhythm  can  be  more  techni- 
cally expressed  if  we  remember  that  emotions  are  never 
imaged;  they  are  "real"  even  when  images  arouse  them. 
They  are  of  the  body.  And  a  poetic  rhythm,  though  its 
cruder  effect  is  usually  to  lull  us  into  that  state  where 
images  grow  clear,  does  also  (I  would  almost  say  after- 
ward) directly  intensify  the  emotions  that  accompany  those 
images.  If  this  statement  is  unsatisfactory  from  a  scien- 
tific stand-point,  that  is  not,  I  think,  because  it  idealizes 
or  blurs  the  facts,  but  because  science  has  in  this  direction 
no  dominant  hypothesis  under  which  the  facts  can  be 
arranged. 

Page  96 

It  is  perhaps  necessary,  in  this  place,  to  allude  to  the 
fact  that  the  word  "poetry"  often  means  "metrical  lan- 
guage," regardless  of  whether  any  genuine  realization  is 
conveyed  by  such  language  or  not.  The  opposite  of 
"poetry"  in  this  sense  is  "straight  copy."  And  since  this 
distinction  is  valuable  in  its  place,  we  need  not  dispute  the 
definition.  We  are  using  the  word  poetry  in  one  of  its 
other  senses  which  is  for  our  purpose,  and  for  the  general 
purposes  of  Hfe,  more  important,  and  we  wish  to  show  the 
historical  and  scientific  relation  of  metrical  language  to 
poetry  in  this  sense. 


NOTES  241 

The  dispute  over  what  "poetry"  means,  as  though  one 
word  always  means  and  always  must  mean  but  one  class  of 
things,  is  so  wearisome  and  (now  that  we  understand  the 
history  of  words)  so  full  of  academic  folly,  that  I  insert 
this  note  simply  to  ward  off  the  suggestion  of  it. 

Page  100 
The  quotation  is  from  the  Book  of  Genesis. 

Page  103 

The  quotations  of  Homer  are  from  Bryant's  transla- 
tion of  the  "Iliad." 

Page  105 

The  quotations  of  Shakespeare  are,  for  the  most  part, 
from  "Coriolanus"  or  "King  Lear." 

Page  107 

As  a  poet  of  the  world,  there  is,  I  think,  this  failing  in 
Shakespeare — and  it  is  seen  by  Tolstoy — that  he  had  a  too 
special  love  of  words.  Often  the  experience  which  his 
lines  convey  is  an  experience  of  the  high  wonder  of  the 
birth  and  being  of  language  rather  than  of  things,  and  it  is 
open  only  to  persons  of  specialized  perception  in  that  direc- 
tion. I  can  best  show  what  I  mean  by  calling  attention 
to  the  entire  transparency  of  the  words  in  this  passage  from 
Shelley,  how  un-Shakespearian  it  is: 

"The  rocks  are  cloven,  and  through  the  purple  night 
I  see  cars  drawn  by  rainbow-winged  steeds 
Which  trample  the  dim  winds:  in  each  there  stands 
A  wild-eyed  charioteer  urging  their  flight. 
Some  look  behind,  as  fiends  pursued  them  there, 
And  yet  I  see  no  shapes  but  the  keen  stars: 
Others,  with  burning  eyes,  lean  forth,  and  drink 
With  eager  lips  the  wind  of  their  own  speed. 


242  NOTES 

As  if  the  thing  they  loved  fled  on  before, 
And  now,  even  now,  they  clasped  it.   Their  bright  locks 
Stream  like  a  comet's  flashing  hair:  they  all 
Sweep  onward." 

Here  is  motion,  and  motion  rich  with  the  technique  of 
verbal  realization,  yet  clear  in  a  way  that  Shakespeare  is 
not  often  clear,  because  he  loved  excessively  the  feeling  of 
words  in  his  mouth  and  mind. 

"They  drink  with  eager  lips  the  wind  of  their  own  speed." 

Page  107  (2) 

The  term  "lyric  poetry,"  as  now  used,  has  less  than  no 
scientific  value.  And  the  word  "epic,"  when  it  does  not 
express  a  judgment  of  value,  means  simply  a  long  story 
told  in  poetry. 

Page  109 

The  quotation  is  from  Bums*s  poem  "To  a  Mountain 
Daisy." 

Page  110 

The  quotation  is  from  a  song  in  Tennyson's  "Princess/* 
quoted  again  in  Chapter  XII. 

Page  113 

The  expression  "word-painting"  derives,  I  believe,  from 
John  Ruskin,  but  the  idea  that  physical  vision  of  imagi- 
nary things  is  the  poetic  faculty  par  excellence,  is  older 
than  books.  "A  speaking  picture"  is  Philip  Sidney's  ex- 
pression. 

The  tribute  of  the  eye  surpasses  that  of  all  the  other 
senses  except  touch,  in  giving  us  the  sense  of  a  presence. 
It  is  a  matter  of  small  moment  if  we  hear  a  lady  splash- 
ing in  the  bath  at  sunrise,  but  given  the  least  retreating 
shade  of  her  to  our  eyesight,  and  there  is  a  great  awakening  I 


NOTES  243 

It  IS  a  topic  for  myth  and  song.  For  such  reasons  we  speak 
of  all  mental  substance  as  though  it  were  composed 
purely  of  visual  memory.  "  Imagination"  and  even 
"idea"  are  visual  words.  And  the  definition  of  poetry  as 
painting,  is  but  a  continuation  of  this  way  of  speaking. 

It  is  in  truth  a  poetic  name  for  poetry.  It  chooses  one, 
and  that  an  eminent  one,  of  its  quaUties  and  compares  it 
upon  the  basis  of  that  to  a  material  art.  But  poetry  may 
as  truly  be  compared  to  sculpture  or  to  any  other  art  that 
appeals  to  an  external  sense.  The  realizations  of  other 
artists  are  limited  to  certain  of  the  senses,  but  the  artist 
of  imagination  appeals  to  them  all.  Therefore,  to  call  the 
poet  "painter,"  is  to  speak  poetically.  Whereas  to  call 
the  painter  a  "poet" — a  realizer  of  things  through  form  and 
color — ^is  almost  a  scientific  generalization. 

In  Caxton's  "Book  of  Curtesye,"  I  find  this  apprecia- 
tion of  "Galfreyde  Chawcer,"  which  expresses  more  truly 
than  "word-painting"  the  characteristic  of  poetry  which 
we  distinguish  in  this  chapter: 

"His  langage  was  so  fayr  and  pertynente 
It  eeemeth  unto  mannys  herrynge 
Not  only  the  worde  but  verely  the  Thynge." 

Page  117 
The  quotation  is  from  the  poem  called  "Walt  Whitman." 

Page  120 

Even  where  it  appears,  as  so  often  in  Wordsworth's 
poems,  that  exactly  the  opposite  principle  has  been  fol- 
lowed, the  commonest  of  all  names  being  chosen,  I  think 
that  the  poetic  effect  lies  largely  in  the  fact  that,  for  per- 
sons who  are  accustomed  to  the  ways  of  poetry,  that  very 
thing  is  a  surprise.  In  somewhat  the  same  way,  an  ex- 
treme prose  word  is  often  poetic  in  a  passage  of  continuous 
poetry. 


244  NOTES 

Page  121 

The  quotations  are  from  a  mediBeval  writer,  from  Shel- 
ley's "Skylark/'  and  from  the  Rig-Veda. 

Page  122 
The  quotation  is  from  Robert  Bums. 

Page  123 

All  that  we  have  of  Sappho  has  been  collected,  with 
various  English  translations,  by  Henry  Thornton  Wharton, 
in  a  book  called  "Sappho." 

Page  127 
The  quotation  is  a  fragment  of  Shelley's. 

Page  128 
The  quotation  is  from  Shelley's  "Adonais." 

Page  131 
The  quotation  is  from  the  "Song  of  Solomon." 

Page  133 

The  quotation  is  from  Andrew  Lang's  translations  of 
Theocritus. 

Page  135 

"When  Lilacs  Last  in  the  Dooryard  Bloomed"  is  Walt 
Whitman's  poem  upon  the  death  of  Abraham  Lincoln. 

Page  136 

For  any  who  may  read  my  book  studiously,  I  wish  to 
explain  that  in  this  chapter  I  mean  by  "abstract  ideas,"  not 
merely  those  indicated  by  terms  which  are  abstract  in  the 
logicd  sense.  I  mean  also  those  indicated  by  general 
terms  when  they  are  used,  not  to  denote  some  individual 


NOTES  245 

(a  dog  barked),  but  to  denote  any  individual  (a  dog  is  a 
good  friend).  The  abstraction  to  which  I  refer  is  psyciio- 
logical,  not  logical.  It  is  the  abstraction  inherent  in  any 
"concept,"  regarded  as  a  concept,  or  used  for  the  purpose 
of  exposition — used  in  any  way  except  to  name  for  the 
imagination  an  individual  thing.  This  is  what  the  word 
abstract  signifies  in  its  popular,  as  well  as  its  psychological 
use,  and,  therefore,  except  for  technical  purposes,  this  note 
is  superfluous. 

Page  136  (2) 

This  way  of  apprehending  poetry  appears  to  be  as  an- 
cient as  any.  "Apparent  pictures  of  unapparent  nat- 
ures" is  a  Zoroastrian  definition  which  sums  up  all  the 
others. 

Aristotle,  in  contrasting  poetry  with  history,  assumes 
that  the  particulars  in  poetry  are  but  instances  of  a  gen- 
eralization. 

Sidney  revives  this  opinion,  and  pleases  his  heart  with 
the  idea  that  the  aim  of  all  poetry  is  to  instruct  by  means 
of  pictures. 

Emerson  shows  the  same  tendency.  "I  am  a  poet,"  he 
says,  "in  the  sense  of  a  perceiver  and  dear  lover  of  the  har- 
monies that  are  in  the  soul  and  in  matter,  and  especially  of 
the  correspondences  between  these  and  those." 

It  was  by  this  road  that  I  arrived  at  the  present  analysis 
of  poetry.  I  published  in  the  North  American  Review  for 
March,  1908,  an  article  on  "The  Poet's  Mind,"  which 
proposed  to  distinguish  poetry  from  practical  language, 
but  did  so  only  in  so  far  as  each  is  employed  in  the  ex- 
pression of  abstract  ideas. 

Hudson  Maxim  has  written  a  book  in  which  he  defines 
poetry  in  much  the  same  way.  His  book  has  a  grand 
title,  "The  Science  of  Poetry,  and  the  Philosophy  of 
Language,"  and  this,  as  well  as  its  contents,  bears  me  out 
a  little  in  my  belief  that  these  definitions  are,  like  the 


246  NOTES 

others,  partial  definitions,  expressions  of  taste  upon  the 
part  of  excessively  intellectual  people.  The  true  general- 
ization does  not  contradict,  but  includes  them. 

Page  137 

"The  butterfly  sleeps  on  the  village  bell"  is  a  Japa- 
nese poem,  like  those  quoted  in  Chapter  VI. 

Page  137  (2) 
The  quotation  is  from  Isaiah. 

Page  138 
The  quotation  is  from  Kant's  "Critique  of  Pure  Reason." 

Page  140 

"  The  deep  truth  is  imageless. " —  Something  of  this  kind 
must  have  been  meant  by  Hegel  in  his  assertion  that  while 
poetry  is  the  highest  of  the  arts,  "the  prose  of  thought"  is 
one  thing  higher. 

That  such  a  thing  as  "imageless  thought"  exists  is 
maintained  by  very  few  psychologists  today.  We  may 
say,  I  think,  that,  no  matter  how  "pure"  one's  reason  may 
be,  its  procedure  is  dependent  in  some  measure  upon  frag- 
ments of  imagery  or  sensation. 

Page  148 

The  quotation  is  from  Wordsworth's  ode  on  "Intima- 
tions of  Immortality." 

Page  150 
The  quotation  is  from  Emerson. 

Page  151 

The  quotation  is  from  Fitzgerald's  translation  of  "Th« 
Rubiiydt"  of  Omar  Khayyim. 


NOTES  247 

Many  of  the  Japanese  Hokku  are  poems  of  this  kind, 
there  being  some  idea  suggested  to  the  initiated,  even 
though  the  words  appear  to  us  purely  pictorial.  This  is 
true,  I  beUeve,  of  two  or  three  of  those  quoted  in  chap- 
ter VI.  But  it  is  not  true  of  all,  and  is  not  essential  to 
their  being  poems. 

Page  155 
The  quotation  is  from  Tennyson's  "Morte  d' Arthur." 

Page  166 

This  decline  into  a  passion  for  the  technique  of  poetry 
as  an  end  in  itself,  is  of  course  always  imminent,  when 
people  make  a  life  business  of  composing  it.  Browning 
was  almost  more  infatuated  with  rhyme,  it  would  appear, 
than  with  his  very  highest  imaginations,  for  he  so  frequently 
sacrificed  the  latter  to  the  former. 

A  similar,  although  more  intellectual,  decadence,  is  the 
passion  for  singularity  and  similarity  as  ends  in  them- 
selves. The  aim  of  a  poetic  choice  or  comparison  here 
ceases  to  be  the  enhancement  of  an  experience,  and  it  be- 
comes merely  an  exploitation  of  intellectual  ingenuity. 

Page  157 
The  quotation  is  from  Tennyson's  **The  Lotos  Eaters." 

Page  157  (2) 

Poe  has  himself  given  an  account  of  his  mood  and  man- 
ner of  creating,  which  supports  this  judgment.  And  he 
too  wrote  upon  the  science,  or  ^'rationale,"  of  verse,  and 
even  made  a  definition  of  all  poetry  as  "a  pleasurable  idea 
accompanied  by  music." 

Page  157  (3) 
The  quotation  is  from  Poe's  "The  Sleeper." 


248  NOTES 

Page  162 

Another  reason  why  it  is  unfortunate  to  quote  those  im- 
memorial Hnes  as  examples  of  poetry,  is  that  they  are  not 
even  illuminating  examples  of  onomatopoeia.  Their  imi- 
tation is  too  obvious  and  extraordinary.  But  onomat- 
opoeia, in  milUons  of  subtle  forms,  is  pervasive  in  poetry. 
It  is  a  principle  that  relates  to  far  other  matters  than  the 
naming  of  bees,  or  a  buzz-saw.  It  is  the  principle  of  that 
poetic  quality  which  we  found  native  to  all  rapid  narra- 
tive— a  similarity  in  consecutiveness  between  the  words 
and  the  events.  It  is  the  principle  of  infinite  indescribable 
appropriatenesses  in  language — things  that  science  can  but 
indicate  in  their  variety  and  leave  to  unconscious  discovery 
by  those  whose  sensibihties  are  fine. 

That  line  of  Keats,  "Lucent  s;yTops  tinct  with  cinna- 
mon," can  show  that  the  principle  applies  to  other  organs 
than  the  ear.  Tinct  is  a  most  dehcate  imitation  of  the  act 
of  tasting.  It  is  more  than  that.  Wolfish  again  is  a  poetic 
word  through  muscular  imitation  of  a  snari.  And  "un- 
flesh  your  teeth"  is  still  more  so,  because  it  does  exactly 
what  it  says.  But  these  also  are  ob\^ous,  compared,  for 
instance,  to  the  appropriateness  of  the  dark  sound  of  the 
word  war  to  the  thing  it  conceives,  or  the  thick  shock  of 
the  word  blood.  It  is  difficult  to  distinguish  what  quality 
pertains  to  a  word  through  its  previous  uses,  and  what 
through  its  purely  sensible  nature. — Violet  is  so  different 
from  violent !  But  certainly  some  of  this  quality  is  purely 
vocal.  Words  do  have  their  sensible  nature;  it  is  definite; 
and  to  those  gifted  or  trained  in  such  perceptions,  it  may 
become  a  strong  enhancement  of  the  imagination  of  things. 

If  one  wished  to  write  a  science  of  these  values,  he  would 
nave  to  recognize  not  only  similarities  in  the  different 
senses  (sound  and  sight  and  motion)  involved  in  word  per- 
ception, but  also  similarities  between  one  sense  and  another 
(as  sound  and  color  in  the  word  gray),  and  between  sensa- 
tions and  ideas,  or  emotions.     He  would  have  also  to 


NOTES  249 

recognize  a  second  principle,  besides  onomatopoeia.  For 
words  acquire  value  through  association,  not  with  other 
things  only,  but  with  the  names  of  other  things.  Bind' 
geon,  for  instance,  is  a  poetic  word  because  it  has  blood 
on  it,  as  well  as  a  good  heavy  smash  of  its  own.  On  the 
other  hand,  spectre  and  phantom  and  ghost  are  poetic 
words  exactly  because  they  have  no  associates.  They  are 
unique  words,  naming  the  unique  apparition.  Milton 
speaks  of  the  army  of  the  pigmies  as  small  infantry,  and  the 
critics  accuse  him  of  a  pun.  But  doubtless  he  chose  the 
word,  as  he  would  any  other,  entirely  unconscious  of  the 
source  of  its  appropriate  flavor.  No  one  has  ever  studied 
to  classify  these  sources,  but  I  believe  the  associative  rela- 
tions among  words  and  syllables  themselves  would  be  found 
almost  as  important  in  such  a  classification  as  onomato- 
poeia. 

Page  162  (2) 

The  quotation  is  from  that  song  in  Tennyson's  "Princess" 
called  "Come  Down,  O  Maid." 

Page  165 
The  sonnet  is  by  Christina  Rossetti. 

Page  166 

The  quotation  is  from  Keats*s  "La  Belle  Dame  Sans 
Merci." 

Page  175 

This  will  be  true  about  the  poetry  of  books  only  if  one 
is  entirely  free  from  cultural  dogmas  about  what  books 
he  "ought  to*'  enjoy,  free  to  make  his  own  arbitrary 
choices,  free  to  reject  all  books  when  the  poetry  of  his  own 
soul  is  at  its  highest. 


250  NOTES 

Page  178 

That  these  intervals  are  not  mathematically  equal  in  the 
modem  reading  of  poetry,  has  been  established  by  me- 
chanical experiment.  An  approximation  to  equality  is 
nevertheless  what  gives  them  their  rhythmic  character, 
and  the  act  of  perception  may  somehow  equalize  them  in 
their  nervous,  as  it  does  in  their  psychic,  effect. 

Page  178  (2) 

As  a  result  of  this  attitude  to  the  line  rhythm,  at  least 
one  so-called  "law  of  prosody"  has  entirely  dominated 
EngHsh  poets,  and  often,  I  think,  to  their  misfortune.  It 
is  the  law  about  left-over  syllables  at  the  end,  or  beginning, 
of  a  line  in  blank  verse.  Suppose  the  division  between 
two  lines  properly  falls  in  the  middle  of  a  word,  or  of  an 
indivisible  phrase,  as  in  this  example: 

"To  him  the  wdU 
That  Blinders  gh6sta  and  ehddow-c^ting  m6n 
Becdme  a  crystal,  ^d  he  siw  them  thr6ugh  it." 

Prosodists  diagnose  that  contrarious  syllable  it,  which 
properly  belongs  to  the  next  line,  as  a  sort  of  abnormal 
excrescence  upon  the  old  line,  call  this  by  the  terrifying 
name  of  acatalectic  (or  catalectic,  or  hypercatalectic — one 
never  remembers  which)  and  require  that  the  next  line  shall 
begin  all  fresh  with  another  unaccented  syllable.     Thus: 

"Became  a  crystal  dnd  he  s^w  them  thr6tSgh  it 
And  hedrd  their  v6Ice8  tdlk  behind  the  wdll." 

That  is,  they  require  that  we  sacrifice  the  flow  of  the  ac- 
cent rhythm,  in  order  to  preserve  the  integrity  of  the  lines 
upon  the  page.  It  is,  perhaps,  foohsh  for  them  to  "re- 
quire" anything,  but  I  think  it  would  be  less  foohsh  to 
require  that  we  cut  off  the  real  excrescence,  which  is  the 
syllable  and,  allowing  the  syllable  it,  which  is  the  first 


NOTES  251 

syllable  of  the  new  line,  to  remain,  if  it  must,  upon  the  end 
of  the  old.    Thus: 

"To  him  the  wiD 
That  stinders  gh6st8  and  sh^ow-cdsting  m6n 
Became  a  crystal,  dnd  he  s^w  them  thr6tlgh  it, 
He^d  their  voices  t&Tk  behind  the  w&ll." 

I  think  so,  because  the  visible  rhythm,  although  more 
obvious,  is  not  so  important  as  the  audible  rhythm.  I 
believe  that  one  who  composed  blank  verse  in  natural  free- 
dom from  the  idea  of  a  printed  page — ^while  he  might  any- 
where introduce  extra  syllables  for  his  pleasure  or  con- 
venience— ^would  usually  overcome  this  technical  diflSculty 
by  sacrificing  the  regularity  of  both  lines  rather  than  by 
sacrificing  the  regular  recurrence  of  his  accent. 

I  have  taken  the  example  from  Tennyson  (Vivien  in 
"The  Idylls  of  the  Eong"),  because  he  is  famous  for  the 
studied  perfection  of  his  rhythm,  but  in  this  matter  he  fol- 
lows a  pattern  which  has  been  accepted,  so  far  as  I  know, 
by  every  English  composer  of  blank  verse. 

Page  180 

In  ancient  Greek  and  Latin  poetry  the  rhythm  within 
the  line  was  apparently  not  a  product  of  natural  accent, 
but  depended  upon  the  reader's  "bringing  it  out,"  just 
as  the  line  rhythm  did.  I  believe  that  it  was  brought 
out,  however  (when  instrumental  music  or  dance-gesture 
was  absent),  by  means  of  some  rhythmic  accent,  and  that 
the  poet's  effort  was  to  combine  syllables  easy  and  diflBcult 
of  enunciation  in  such  an  order  as  to  lend  themselves  well 
to  that  accent.  It  is  certain,  at  least,  that  poets  of  any 
worth  were  not  much  occupied  with  those  artificial  "rules 
of  quantity,"  which  their  learned  commentators  have 
passed  down  to  us;  and  it  is  certain  that  there  was  no  finer 
"discrimination  of  time  intervals"  then,  than  there  is  now. 


252  NOTES 

Poetry  was  a  good  deal  the   same,  but  scholars  were 
making  up  a  different  fairy-tale  about  it. 

Page  181 

The  quotation  is  from  Sidney  Lanier's  "Song  of  the 
Chattahoochee. " 

Page  181  (2) 

Rhyme  is  employed  in  the  line,  "I  hurry  amain  to 
reach  the  plain,"  to  reduplicate  the  rhythm  still  again — 
to  bring  out,  that  is,  a  half-line  rhythm  within  the  others. 

Page  182 

The  quotations  are  from  Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti's 
"Jenny";  SheUey's  "To  Night";  Bums's  "To  a  Mouse," 
and  "The  Banks  o*  Doon." 

Page  183 

Notice  that  this  regular  alternation  produces  a  third  re- 
duplication of  the  wave  series.  A  fourth  is  produced  by 
separating  equal  groups  of  lines  into  stanzas.  Stanzas  are 
usually  so  long,  however,  that  they  can  only  be  perceived 
in  retrospection,  and  are  then  not  truly  rhythmical,  but  a 
part  of  the  formal  attractiveness  of  poems. 

Page  185 

The  alternation  of  lines  of  different  length  is  a  fifth  way 
of  reduplicating  the  wave  series.  And  the  alternation  of 
feet  of  different  length  is  a  sixth.  The  latter  is  not  com- 
mon in  English  poetry,  occurring  so  far  as  I  know  only  in 
imitations  of  ancient  unrhjined  song,  but  its  effect  is  both 
strong  and  unique.  I  quote  an  example  from  Swinburne's 
"Sapphics." 


NOTES  253 

"Then  the  Muses,  stricken  at  heart,  were  silent; 
Yea  the  gods  waxed  pale;  such  a  song  was  that  song. 
AT  reluctant  all  with  a  fresh  repulsion, 
Fled  from  before  her. 

"All  withdrew  long  since,  and  the  land  was  barren, 
Full  of  fruitless  women  and  music  only. 
Now  perchance,  when  winds  are  assuaged  at  sunBet, 
Lulled  at  the  dewfall, 

**By  the  gray  sea-side,  unassuaged,  unheard  of, 
Unbeloved,  unseen  in  the  ebb  of  twilight. 
Ghosts  of  outcast  women  return  lamenting, 
Purged  not  in  Lethe. 

**  Clothed  about  with  flame  and  with  tears,  and  singing 
Songs  that  move  the  heart  of  the  shaken  heaven, 
Songs  that  break  the  heart  of  the  earth  with  pity. 
Hearing,  to  hear  them." 

Page  186 

For  the  person  who  sees  it  on  the  page,  or  reads  it  in  a 
certain  way,  a  similarity  of  nature  and  position  remains, 
even  when  the  length  of  lines  is  varied.  A  broad  sugges- 
tion of  rhythmic  recurrence  is  retained  in  this  way  even 
in  Walt  Whitman's  poetry. 

Page  186  (2) 

So  soon  as,  and  so  far  as,  the  poem  itself  becomes  an 
object  of  realization,  and  the  elements  of  writing  and 
utterance  are  developed  in  variety  for  their  own  sake, 
much  more  than  this  may  be  said  of  rhythmical  speech. 
Only  it  will  all  be  a  pointing  out  of  various  specific 
characteristics;  it  will  not  be  a  general  theory  of  poetic 
rhythm. 

An  infinite  number  of  good  things  have  already  been  said 
upon  this  subject.  But  they  have  not  recognized  them- 
selves to  be  a  pointing  out  of  new  varieties  and  ways  in 
which  verse  has  attracted  a  reader;  they  have  taken  them- 


254  NOTES 

selves  each  to  be  an  exclusively  true  general  theory  of 
En^ish  rhythm.  And  so  prosody  has  been  vitiated  and 
rendered  ridiculous,  just  as  at  some  time  every  science  has, 
by  the  superstitious  assumption  that  a  single,  eternal,  and 
futile,  and  absolute  truth  exists  in  answer  to  every  ques- 
tion that  may  arise. 

Page  194 

The  quotation  is  from  George  Chapman. 

Page  195 
The  quotation  b  from  Robert  Browning's  "SauL" 


18  2o2  2 


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